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Keynsham Rectory burned to the ground 98 years ago to this day. Famous as the inspiration behind both M.R. James' story "The Turn Of The Screw" and Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan", it was through the lesser known Algernon Blackwood story "The Innocence" that the Rectory first entered the public imagination. Although the events described in these three stories are designed to send shivers down the spine, the real story of Keynsham is no less disturbing.

In 1864, the Reverend James Wilkinson moved to from Blackpool, Lancs, to Keynsham, Yorkshire, the new resident preacher at Keynsham village church. Popular with the villagers by all accounts, Wilkinson was highly active within the community and is described in Thompson's "Village Life" as "a great man of God, moving amongst the peoples all around and uplifting them with both words and deeds". It is said that when the village bakery was flooded he gave up the rectory for three months to the baker's family. Wilkinson himself slept beneath the stars.

Two years into his tenure, Wilkinson reported what is now widely considered to be the start of the haunting. "All at night I awoke, and passing through my house without candle or lantern I happened upon an open window. As the evening was not clement I made to close it, and happened to make glance through to the hills and fields beyond the village. There upon the hill there was a deer that trod upon the ground. All at once I felt sore afraid for the dear looked upon my house and I could see its countanance was not that of a deer but of a fiend."

Over the next years, Wilkinson's diary notes an increasing series of strange events. Freshly bought meat is found "full of maggots and eggs" or "with wide toothmarks upon the surface". Dairy produce spoils and sours, and eggs "smell like excrement and have flecks of dark brown across them". The family dog became quiet and withdrawn, then vanished (although Wilkinson puts this down to the weakened hound being taken by foxes in the woods).

More sinister, although possibly unrelated, was the death of Bishop Andrew Fischer outside the rectory gates. Fischer had come as a guest of the Wilkinsons and was due to speak at the church on the Sunday. He was discovered outside the gates of the rectory, his hand still touching the metal. The surgeon describes "It were as if a wild animal had flown out from between the bars of the gate and savaged him. Not one drop of his life's blood was on the hallowed ground but all were streaked around on the snow and into the road. [Fischer] was sorely wounded and although appeared dead was still gasping and moaning when I came to give my services." As an interesting side fact, a travelling circus with animals, such as lions, is documented to be in the local area although there are no reports of escaped beasts.

The culmination of the Wilkinson story came when the Reverend's wife moved from Lancashire to join him. Wilkinson wrote that he and her "were engaged as it is right for those brought together in the eyes of the Lord to be, and it be an honest expression of our love. As she rose up in her pleasure she began to talk in a voice not of her own, and I could see a moving shape all behind and around her head. I made for to leap from our bed and confront the intruder, but my good wife held me down with such strength as of ten men. Behind her was a deer of transparent skin. Inside were all blackened and strange organs and shapes that made me cold to the sight and I was feared to look up them. The gaping maw of this infernal creature split its face in twain from top to bottom, and the horrid jaws were clamped around the beautiful face of my wife." Wilkinson goes on to describe the beast's tongue "slithering and probing trough her ear and finally into the base of her neck".

Wilkinson conversed with the beast, who claimed its name was "Bar Het Ra". He describes how the house now "throbbed and groaned with the steady beat of a pulse that filled my very mind and seemed to turn the hard walls to glisten with strange and horrid skins". It appears the beast led him through the house to an underground chamber where the Reverend claims to have witnessed "a beating heart at the core of the cellar where the beast sent my wife into and she was consumed."

Wilkinson was discovered naked and screaming in the church tower, and was removed to a "hospital of the mind" where he spent the rest of his days. Those who lived in the priory after his tenure often reported strange incidents, visitations and apportations. The building and church were destroyed in an unexplained fire that claimed three lives.