Historic Environment Scotland
Ballechin House was a Georgian country house near Grandtully, Perthshire, Scotland. It was built in 1806, on the site of an old manor house which had been owned by the Steuart family since the 15th century.[1] Robert Steuart (1806–1876) inherited the house from his father in 1834, and rented it out to tenants while he served in the Indian Army. He returned to the house in 1850, having achieved the rank of Major.[2]
During his time in India, Steuart came to believe in reincarnation and transmigration, the idea that the soul is able to inhabit a non-human body. He vowed that after his death he would return to Ballechin in the body of his favourite black spaniel.[2]
Following the Major´s death in 1876 the house was inherited by his nephew, John Skinner, who assumed the name Steuart. Apparently fearing that his uncle would reincarnate in the form of one of his dogs, the new owner reportedly shot them all,[1] leading to the notion that Robert Steuart was thus forced to haunt the house as a disembodied spirit.[2]
The first reported haunting at the house took place in 1876; the witness was a maid in the house. But most of the reports seem to have come from a family who were tenants in the late 1890s, the Heavens.[1] They complained of being terrorised by poltergeist activity, including strange noises, apparitions and unseen hands moving objects, and left after just a few weeks of their tenancy.[3]
Investigation
In 1897 an investigation of the house was sponsored by John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, with the assistance of two paranormal researchers from the Society for Psychical Research
Registered charity founded in 1882 to conduct scientific investigations into psychic and paranormal phenomena. (SPR), Colonel Lemesurier Taylor and Ada Goodrich Freer.[4] In 1899 The Alleged Haunting of B—- House by Crichton-Stuart and Freer was published, and serialised in The Times, containing a journal of the phenomena collected by Freer during their stay in the house.[5]
But other guests staying in the house at the same time reported that they had experienced nothing unusual. One guest in particular, J. Callender Ross, contributed an article to The Times in which he launched a sustained attack on the SPR, and especially Miss Freer:[6]
Later history
Ballechin House was abandoned by 1932, and most of the house was demolished in 1963 after a fire, leaving only the former servants quarters and outbuildings.[1]
