When Liz Rich, a young pregnant mother, moved into an idyllic home in the Brecon Beacons, she had no idea what awaited her.
Together with her husband, the artist Bill, and their teenage son, Laurence, the family looked forward to a quiet life in the stunning but tranquil mountains of Wales.
But what happened was tremendously different.
Instead of the life of their dreams, Liz and Bill faced seven years of hell inside the house they believe was haunted.
In fact, the so-called Witches’ Farm has since become the most exorcised home in the United Kingdom.
Shortly after moving into the house in 1989, Liz, Bill and Laurence began to hear loud footsteps running through the house and down the stairs.
Then doors began to slam unexpectedly, animals began to mysteriously die, and Laurence’s personality began to alter significantly.
The paranormal activity became so intense that the family was forced to call in a priest to perform a series of extreme exorcisms and they eventually moved out.
When Liz Rich, a young pregnant mother, moved into an idyllic home in the Brecon Beacons, she had no idea what awaited her. Together with her husband, the artist Bill, and their teenage son, Laurence, the family looked forward to a quiet life in the stunning but tranquil mountains of Wales.
The story of what happened at Heol Fanog is the subject of a paranormal investigation for a BBC podcast. The witch farmpresented by Danny Robins.
The chase lasted a period of seven years and Liz believes she was possessed at the property and that it “destroyed” her husband.
Speaking on the podcast, she said: “I felt violated, the thought of something, some energy, having the audacity to take over your body even for a short period of time.”
It all started when the family moved to the farm in 1989. Liz was pregnant with her first child, Ben, but then the couple started hearing loud footsteps.
Liz said: “They weren’t soft steps, they were strong, he wanted to be heard, he became braver whatever it was.”
Extremely hot and cold spots were felt inside the house and there were also extreme smells: the foul stench of sulfur and the distinctive aroma of incense, which appeared and disappeared frequently but at random.
‘It wasn’t tangible, that was the scary part. It was like he was playing with us, like a cat with a mouse,’ Liz added.
The house’s electricity meter also spun out of control, appearing to increase at times when the phenomena were most intense.
The couple were shocked when they opened their first electricity bill – it cost £750 for just three months, the equivalent of almost £2,000 today.
The story of what happened at Heol Fanog is the subject of a paranormal investigation for a BBC podcast, The Witch Farm, presented by Danny Robins. The farm is in the photo.
An official letter from the electricity supplier could not explain why so much energy was being consumed in the house or why it was occurring in such intense bursts.
Within a few weeks of living in the house, all of their animals had died from “going crazy” and had escaped.
Liz explained: ‘The pig died, two cats died, the guinea pig and the dog died and a herd of six goats died. This strange plate of madness had spread to all the animals we had.
“There was no happiness there anymore, it was hell, absolute hell.”
Liz revealed that she was walking back to the house with Ben in his stroller when she looked up at the house and saw an old woman looking at her through Ben’s bedroom window.
The couple noticed that Laurence’s personality was beginning to change; when Liz’s mother came to spend the night, he spat in her face.
Frightened and desperate, Liz and Bill enlist the help of a psychic medium, who suggested that the apparition is the fault of someone in the house.
The medium said they had to ask 15-year-old Laurence to move out because he could be the one being haunted.
The couple had a second child in 1990, a little Rebecca, who as she grew older also experienced paranormal activity.
Speaking to the podcast, Rebecca said: “I had recurring dreams, we all started sleeping in the same room, I couldn’t be alone at night.”
“Many times they would rush us out of the house in the middle of the night and take us to my grandparents’ house.”
Liz said: “I know people will think we’re weird people and we’re making it all up, but you’d have to have a lot of imagination to make this all up.” He felt dangerous in that house.
‘The children always slept with me, I didn’t let them sleep alone. I definitely felt very threatened there. When you have encountered evil, you know it. Ghosts no longer scare me because I have encountered so much evil in my life. That’s the truth.’
Bill became even more withdrawn into himself and his art, creating increasingly darker and more disturbing images.
The apparition took another terrifying step when another apparition appeared in the house, a dark and terrifying figure.
Bill and Liz were forced to flee Heol Fanog and go to Liz’s parents’ house, a couple of miles away.
Desperate, they turned to a new exorcist: the Reverend David Holmwood, who was convinced that the paranormal activity was caused by something truly evil.
David convinced the couple that it was the work of the devil and believed that the answers lay in the mysteries of the past.
Liz said: “He went through the house, picked out some of Bill’s paintings and said they needed to be burned and he burned them.”
Podcast host Danny learned about a violent murder that occurred 150 years ago. It happened near the house, in 1848.
An innocent 18-year-old farm worker, James Griffiths, was attacked by Thomas Edwards, 23, who hit him on the back of the head with an ax and then reportedly buried the body on a farm near Heol Fanog. He was later hanged for his crime.
As the terrifying phenomena reached extreme heights, Bill began to have dark thoughts and Liz began to wonder if she was losing her mind.
Liz and Bill prepared for the exorcism that would end all exorcisms, with celebrated ghost hunter Eddie Burks, however Bill began to believe that he was the culprit behind all the paranormal activity.
Bill revealed that he was hiding a dark secret and claimed that he was a witch in the past, had once been involved with a man who practiced witchcraft, and even once half-heartedly participated in a ritual before changing his mind.
In 1996, the family finally left Heol Fanog and moved to Cowbridge, after inheriting money when Liz’s grandfather died.
However, Bill couldn’t shake the feeling of darkness and turned to alcohol, which eventually killed him.
Liz said through tears: “There are a lot of people who just float through life and everything is nice and perfect and easy. I’ve wished a million times I’d had one of those lives.”