Poor maids of the past. So vulnerable to exploitation of all kinds at unscrupulous hands. The needed a Me Too movement!
Having a child out of wedlock was desperate, no social security only the workhouse (when they were established) which was dire. Children removed from mothers and high infant mortality. It was chilling to hear (from Call the Midwife) that there was a thing called The Work House Howl - a sound no human should have to make or hear. Sometimes women would take drastic action such as throw their babies in the river because the situation was so impossible for them. I read about this in Margaret Forster's book Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir which draws on the life of her grandmother, a servant with a secret illegitimate daughter)
Whenever I hear people bang on about people on benefits, I always think, well its not perfect but bloody hell - it was spectacularly awful for women in particular before the welfare state and NHS. No wonder they left a feeling of hopelessness in their wake. Shame no one has been able to put the mood to rest as it were, in some of these places.
What is it that leaves a bad vibe ? residual haunting/imprint of sad/mad/bad feelings, an actual spirit, a weird position in the landscape, an unfortunate history of a place, a time slip (I often get the sense time works in a way less obvious than in the linear fashion)?
Obviously a common phenomena to be experienced by some of the population, even the less woo members. Maybe its a mix of these. Or just empathy and imagination when it comes to known historical places.
I once stayed in a very old farmhouse in Wales, they put us in the room next to their prayer room (it was a commune) and I had very vivid dreams about a malevolent spirit who gave me a taste of what having a fractured mind (going mad and not being able to put the pieces of the world together). The spirit was laughing and pleased that it had destroyed a human mind. The weird thing was that this spirit was rolling marbles (ha ha my lost marbles) to me from a gap under the wall - between our room and the prayer room. I woke up in a very cold sweat as it had seemed so real, so malevolent and happy in its evil doing.
Next day I was gardening and someone asked me how I'd slept. To be honest not that well I replied and told her the tale.
She viably blanched and said the room next door to ours had been well known as having something not nice in it and hence they had made it into a prayer room - as no one wanted to sleep there and they thought they might counteract it with good spirit.
I said I didn't want another night in there, and was relocated to a converted barn, which was fine. The funny thing was , though there were tensions amongst the commune, the rest of the place had a very magical and good vibe, and was on the side of a mountain where poets would go traditionally - though it was said you'd be inspired or go mad after a night up there atop the mountain! It was a very 'ancient landscape', but where this nasty spirit had come from I don't know. He was not a relaxing bedfellow is all I can say!