William Gilderiche - Reader of Souls

My name is William Gilderiche, a man who is possessed of a gift; one which is naught but a curse. For I am like no other upon this Earth. As I alone can read souls, not those of people but of buildings; buildings where terrible events have blighted those who once lived or walked within their walls. Never did I see visions of love, laughter or joy, but only those of hatred, tragedy and sadness. Then one day my visions became worse; they were everywhere; within the books I read, the objects that I touched and, on the land, I trod. Now they were of death and murder, born out of flame and fire; ever more personal, ever more real and ever more terrifying. They were about me and me alone; about the terrible deeds I had committed across the ages. All done in the name of god, church and state; but most of all by the evil that lived within my soul. I am a man with a past, not just one, but many; my soul reincarnated into the body of another, over and over again, century after century. This is my story and of the search to prove my innocence. It is a tale which begins with a confession of my sins, where no light of goodness shone, only the darkness of evil was seen; and ends when my soul perishes in the flames of redemption, only to be reborn into the one time and place where I truly belonged.

"It would take the four hundred year old riddle of a monkey who cried and died, to draw back the curtain that hid the truth; that of the pagan deity of a warrior queen, who granted her victory by fire three times, in return for the souls of her first born descendants; who would forever be – the Devil’s Arsonist. This tale is set within England’s East Anglian counties of Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It spans almost two millennia of their past; from the time the Celtic tribes rose up against their Roman oppressors to the present day; when I became a man born into the wrong time; a man who had to fight an even greater battle, one to save my very soul and defeat the impossible. It is a saga which tells the uplifting tale of how faith and belief can overcome even death itself. It is a book for all those who believe that death is not the end of life, but merely the start of a new beginning, with those they love."


“An old house is a living place of history. It tells of the people who shaped its ancient life: the families who lived in it; the craftsmen who built it; and those who came to visit it. Each of them will have left something behind for those to come: an occupier may have left a will; an owner may have drawn up a title deed; the medieval carpenter may have carved ‘instruction marks’ in its oak timbers; whilst a visitor may have stayed there on the night of a census. It is also my unshakable belief that like people, houses have souls; they feel, breathe and think as we do; they have memories of all who have lived or walked within them; all of which they absorb into their very walls. For those willing and able to listen, they will tell their story. I am such a person. There is an ancient house in the village in which I live, of which it is said by the more superstitious among us, that its first owner, then Bishop of London, used up all the luck in the world. So much so that all who have ever lived in it since, have suffered grave misfortune; bringing on them everything that is bad: financial ruin, murderous assaults, ghostly apparitions, family tragedy and death. It was in this very house that I first plied my trade; and whose soul I searched, finding that only evil dwelled therein. It is a place, where the Devil’s Arsonist did once knock.” Dr. William Gilderiche, Architectural Historian

“An old house is a living place of history. It tells of the people who shaped its ancient life: the families who lived in it; the craftsmen who built it; and those who came to visit it. Each of them will have left something behind for those to come: an occupier may have left a will; an owner may have drawn up a title deed; the medieval carpenter may have carved ‘instruction marks’ in its oak timbers; whilst a visitor may have stayed there on the night of a census. It is also my unshakable belief that like people, houses have souls; they feel, breathe and think as we do; they have memories of all who have lived or walked within them; all of which they absorb into their very walls. For those willing and able to listen, they will tell their story. I am such a person. There is an ancient house in the village in which I live, of which it is said by the more superstitious among us, that its first owner, then Bishop of London, used up all the luck in the world. So much so that all who have ever lived in it since, have suffered grave misfortune; bringing on them everything that is bad: financial ruin, murderous assaults, ghostly apparitions, family tragedy and death. It was in this very house that I first plied my trade; and whose soul I searched, finding that only evil dwelled therein. It is a place, where the Devil’s Arsonist did once knock.” Dr. William Gilderiche, Architectural Historian


“That on 9 September 36 Elizabeth [1594] Cecily Sandes widow, being seized of a free tenement for term of her life in a capital messuage, etc., in Woodham Ferrers was there with Miles Sandes esq., her son, and John Gawber gentleman and divers other persons, her servants, when Walter Hesmes, George Clarke, Henry Foreste and William Noble, all of Woodham Ferrers yeomen, Richard Sherrington barber, Samuel Reynoldes shoemaker, Nicholas Wattes barber, Simon Moore shoemaker, John Meadowes shoemaker, Thomas Lucas yeoman, all of Brentwood, William Sheppy, William Lycorys, Christopher Glascock and Henry Barker, all of High Ongar yeomen, with many other by the procuration of Roger Gittins of Woodham Ferrers, armed with cudgels, swords, "corslettes", etc., "gunnes" charges with "shott and powder" to the great terror of the Queen's subjects, there at 12 at night broke into the said tenement and broke the doors and windows with axes and assaulted the inhabitatants and wounded John Gawber, Roger Tue, Nathaniel Moncke and William Marshe. And that the aforesaid Roger Gittins on 8 September had incited them to this, with the intention of killing the said Cecily.”

“That on 9 September 36 Elizabeth [1594] Cecily Sandes widow, being seized of a free tenement for term of her life in a capital messuage, etc., in Woodham Ferrers was there with Miles Sandes esq., her son, and John Gawber gentleman and divers other persons, her servants, when Walter Hesmes, George Clarke, Henry Foreste and William Noble, all of Woodham Ferrers yeomen, Richard Sherrington barber, Samuel Reynoldes shoemaker, Nicholas Wattes barber, Simon Moore shoemaker, John Meadowes shoemaker, Thomas Lucas yeoman, all of Brentwood, William Sheppy, William Lycorys, Christopher Glascock and Henry Barker, all of High Ongar yeomen, with many other by the procuration of Roger Gittins of Woodham Ferrers, armed with cudgels, swords, "corslettes", etc., "gunnes" charges with "shott and powder" to the great terror of the Queen's subjects, there at 12 at night broke into the said tenement and broke the doors and windows with axes and assaulted the inhabitatants and wounded John Gawber, Roger Tue, Nathaniel Moncke and William Marshe. And that the aforesaid Roger Gittins on 8 September had incited them to this, with the intention of killing the said Cecily.”