The Storyteller: Mystery and scandal as we uncover secrets of Overbecks

At my monthly TIP meeting last week, one of the new members shared with us an experience he once had at a National Trust property near Salcombe, called Overbecks. This magnificent house and gardens stands on a clifftop high above the Salcombe/Kingsbridge Estuary, and is well known to the group, as we did a special Halloween investigation there back in 2011.
Previously, I had visited many times over the years, intrigued by its haunted reputation and its special secret room.

Inside this room, once you’ve located the hidden entrance, you come across display cabinets full of dolls houses and other children’s toys, all now very collectable. In amongst these exhibits is hidden “Fred the friendly ghost”, to compliment the real resident ghost. It’s the staffs’ job to position him somewhere different every day, making it the visitor’s job to find him...a good bit of fun.

On one of my visits, I enquired about the possibility of doing a ghost hunt there, if such a thing was allowed, and it turned out the events manager was interested, having let other groups investigate in the past. Rather than just let it be a night for my group, and us having to pay for the privilege, she was up for making it a public event, whereby there would be an entrance fee that went into her coffers...in those days I was happy to run an investigation for free, being able to spend the night in spooky old buildings was reward enough, nowadays I need to make a living out of it...

We agreed to make it a Halloween event for that October, as we felt it would draw a better crowd, which it did, but for several weeks leading up to our chosen date we were allowed to have practice runs, to see what the sensitives could pick up, giving me something to talk about with my audience on the night, and we did come up with some interesting details.
It was remembering those details that made for an interesting meeting, as our new friend, Ray, seemed to have had a similar experience.

He told us that his friend worked in the gardens at Overbecks some years ago, and often claimed to see an odd figure standing by an old sundial that no one else could see. As he was friendly with the management at that time, his friend got permission to hold a ghost hunt there one night, after hours, and Ray, plus a few others, joined him. Starting outside, in the garden area with the sundial, he once again saw this odd figure in the dark, which no one else, including Ray, could. Then it moved inside the house, so they all followed. Searching around, at first it couldn’t be found, then the friend spotted it on the main staircase, and he was able to identify the spirit as being that of a previous owner, Otto Overbeck, who had given his name to the property, and lived there until his death in 1937. The friend was getting some odd vibes from the ghost, something that made him feel very uneasy, and not in a spooky way, so much so that he had to do some further research, which turned up some shocking results...

We too did some online searching, after the sensitives picked up on some interesting information during their walk around. Like with Ray’s friend, a figure was sensed by the sundial in the grounds, inside the house some got a military and a hospital vibe, whilst others were drawn towards part of the building that we didn’t have access to, which contained an ornate glass panelled observation tower. Before Otto Overbeck died, he bequeathed the house to the National Trust, insisting it be named after him, giving them the stunning gardens to upkeep for public viewing, and half the house which he had made into a museum featuring his own inventions, art work, and collections, whilst the other half he instructed to be turned into a youth hostel. With all these different energies inside the building, it was time to do some online investigating to get to the bottom of it.
The current house is of Edwardian design, which replaced an original small villa erected on the land by a Salcombe builder called Albert Stumbles around 1901, calling it Sharpitor, possibly because it is built on cliffs. The magnificent gardens were first laid by an Edric Hopkins, and added to by all subsequent owners, all leaving their mark on the design.

In 1913, the land was bought by George Vereker, who started by demolishing the original house and building the one we see today, for himself and his family to live in. Sadly, his son, Robert, had enlisted in the army, and was killed on 25th August 1914, during the Battle of Mons. On 23rd August 1915, as a way of honouring their boy, the family allowed the Red Cross to use their home as a convalescent hospital for returning injured troops. When it closed for this purpose, on 29th January 1919, it had seen 1010 recovering soldiers come and go through its doors, without reporting a single death. This is the scenario that several of my mediums picked up on, without sensing any actual spirits present from that time.

Then we have the curious case of Otto Overbeck, who purchased the property in 1928, moving down from a life in Grimsby, to the more exotic climate of South Devon. He was an inventor, linguist, and art collector, filling the place with his own inventions, which included “The Electrical Rejuvenator”, designed to halt the ageing process, and art work, including some of his own compositions.
This is where our story takes on a more unpleasant tone, for his paintings are displayed alongside his other collections of stuffed animals, dolls houses, toys and other curiosities. All of them seem to have one theme in common, young boys in naval outfits. It would appear he was in the habit of inviting local boys to the house, dressing them in the outfits, in order to paint them...even I could pick up odd vibes from that behaviour!

Looking further into his Wikipedia entry, all is revealed. It would seem that Otto was very keen to share his wealth for the good of boys’ leisure pursuits, especially the scouts, gymnastics and swimming groups. His move from Grimsby was very timely, for within the following year he was called upon to answer accusations from some of the boys whose clubs he had had dealings with...he denied them. The prosecution felt the boys wouldn’t have risked their reputations by making such allegations if they weren’t true, but the defence dismissed them as they were working class, and Otto had so many friends offering witness statements to his impeccable character, that the judge had no choice but to drop the charges. Otto was free to return to his new home, able to live his life anyway he chose...

He died in 1937, and the National Trust were keen to carry out his wishes, renaming the property Overbecks, turning half the house into a museum, whilst the other half became a Youth Hostel, allegedly just for boys, as Otto was adamant that it didn’t become a brothel, as many other old houses in the area apparently had...
As I said, we didn’t get to investigate that part of the building, and then, in 2014 the Youth Hostel was closed down, still leaving that area closed to the public. I thought there might now be an opportunity to explore the whole building, if I was to revisit the site, but, as a result of doing this latest research, I’ve discovered that, since Covid, the house has been closed to the public, you can now only visit the gardens. Hopefully, one day the National Trust might reverse this decision, and I will get the opportunity to return, and see if Otto still roams his old home.