There's something about a deserted mansion...

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."
Every time  I pass by this sad old house, staring north with sightless eyes, I get the tantalizing sense of a mysterious unknown past lurking just beyond my reach.
The place was built by a gentleman landowner in 1800 and described by a local historian a few years later as "a handsome modern mansion in the midst of a well-managed demesne". It seems to have been retained in the same family until the middle of the 20th century when it was sold to a farmer, perhaps for the sake of the land, perhaps in the hope that the fortunes of the house could be revived. But tragedy set in when the farming family's clever son, who had  won all the school prizes and who seemed destined for a glittering career, suffered a mental breakdown that destroyed his intellect. His mother died not long after.
When I first found the house the farmer and his stricken son still lived there, confined to a couple of small back rooms (hence the TV aerial). They wouldn't let me in but I used to pass the time of day with the old man, who was in his 80s then.  Always his conversation drifted back to his disappointment that it had proved impossible to get any sort of grant to maintain the building.
Father and son died within a short time of each other a few years ago and the mansion stands empty now, damp and decay eating into its fabric as surely as lost hope corrodes the human spirit.