Brightling
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John “Mad Jack” Fuller was the squire of Brightling in East Sussex. He lived from 20th February 1757 until 11th April 1834. He was a member of Parliament and patron of the arts as well as a wealthy landowner. Jack was rather eccentric and became famous for building follies such as the Pyramid, which is a towering tomb that he had prepared for himself in the village churchyard. It was said that he was buried inside the tomb sitting at a table, complete with bottle of wine at hand and wearing a top hat. Broken glass was strewn across the floor to stop the Devil's footsteps! Sadly both stories were proven to be untrue when it was necessary to enter the tomb to carry out restoration work many years later.
The Fuller family fortune had been built upon iron
and the manufacture of iron goods, especially
cannons and similar equipment for the British Royal
Navy. They also had a substantial income from sugar
plantations in Jamaica.
He was a large man who lived life to the full, he never married but
enjoyed supporting good causes and assumed the role
of local philanthropist - he paid for the first
lifeboat at Eastbourne, and towards the building of
the Belle Tout Lighthouse on the cliffs at nearby
Beachy Head..jpg)
He is said to have revelled in the name 'Mad Jack Fuller' - presumably to enhance the eccentric image. During his life he arranged and paid for a number of follies and other structures in and around Brightling, perhaps the strangest being his own tomb in which he is buried in Brightling churchyard.
Because of Jack’s unusual pyramid tomb, were his remains are now buried, the church in Brightling has become famous.
The church has two organs; one which is the nationally important barrel organ given to the church by Jack Fuller which is installed on the 18th century gallery at the west end of the nave, the second is a more conventional organ which is used for the day to day services. For more information about 'Mad Jack' visit
http://johnmadjackfuller.homestead.com/index.html
Weather - Warm, dry
evening in 2009
Investigators - Jackie, Bill, Paul, Donna, Steve, Kevin, Cindy, Robert and Henry
We started by walking around the churchyard to see if anyone could pick up any paranormal activity. The atmosphere felt slightly different by Jacks pyramid so we decided to stay there and see what we could find.
We stood
in a circle and began by asking questions using a
voice recorder to see if we could capture any
E.V.P.'s but unfortunately didn't.
After a very short time Kevin started to feel ill and faint so had to sit down, at the same time Jackie picked up the presence of an elderly well-dressed man wearing a dark suit close to him.
Kevin however was sensing a younger man wearing a cloth cap, a bit like the boy in the Hovis bread advertisement on T.V. Kevin felt this entity was standing in front of him and was quite over powering. Jackie had to tell Kevin to ask the man stand back as the group could see some unknown force was affecting him so Kevin asked the presence to withdraw and the heaviness faded. He then started to hear what sounded like twigs snapping in front of him and got the name Tommy.
It became apparent a while later that Paul, who had been away from the group taking photos, had also picked up the presence of a man aged around 65-70 with glasses, wearing a suite and hat. Did we all pick up on the same energy and was it 'mad Jack' we may never know. There was nothing on the recorder or photos to back it up.
Jackie the picked up on an old lady wearing a long dress and bonnet and Donna kept 'seeing' a teenage girl, age around 19, with blonde hair wearing a white dress. She appeared to be hiding behind the tomb and peeping her head out now and again.
It is said that if you walk backwards around Jack’s tomb 13 times he will appear; a few of us did this but needless to say nothing happened. LOL
Conclusion - Although some members picked up on different spirit energy. We didn't managed to find any actual proof of any paranormal activity that has been reported, either on film or voice recorder, but there was one strange incident in that was Paul’s car key fob seemed completely dead. We tried for 10-15 minutes before it eventually did work. He never had problems with it before or since but has now replaced the battery just in case. It is probably just a coincidence but it has been said that spirit can drain batteries.
© 2009 Kent Paranormal Seekers