Alice Parsons' house

The three-storey-high old stone house in Shoreditch in East End was built as early as the 18th century. Until her death in 2015, it belonged to Alice Parsons.

Outside appearance and garden
The house was painted purple and grey, and had sash windows. The ground floor windows were barred with iron. The house had a garden separated from the street by railings. By 2016, the paint was peeling, the windows were covered with ivy and the garden was overgrown with weeds. The front door had a door knocker in the shape of a rose.

There was a back gate at the side leading to the back garden with a conservatory leaning against the house. Another entrance to the house was through the conservatory.

Interior
The front door led to a big hallway with a wooden staircase going up to an open first-floor landing with ornate railing. There were floorboards on the floor.

The hallway led to a small room with a fireplace and many dolls in different national costumes on one side and to a small dining room on the other side with a long table covered in comics. The hallway was also connected to a lounge with a huge ancient television.

Adjoining to the small room was a kitchen with a free-standing oven, battered fridge freezer and a wide old-style sink. Doors led from the kitchen to a utility room with an old washing machine and to the conservatory. In the floor of the utility room, there was a hidden door leading to the basement.

Several doors led from the first-floor landing. Another set of stairs led from it to the top floor. Ceilings on the second floor were lower and corridors tighter. At the end of a corridor covered with old carpet leading straight from the second-floor landing was the attic room. It was large and had a low ceiling slanted on the side looking out over the garden. There was a wooden chest of drawers, two beds, a trunk with 108 children's books and a wardrobe with musty-smelling dresses. A hatch in the ceiling led to the attic, mostly containing things no longer used. The attic had no floorboards, only sheets of cardboard covering exposed struts.

In the 21st century, the inside of the house was covered in cobwebs so dense they were blocking the light. The webs were especially dense in the basement, where a section was completely cut off by solid web wall.

Rumours
When Ram Singh was a kid, it was rumoured that a mad old woman living in the house pulled out kids' teeth and made jewellery out of them.

The urban legends website "Myth City", run by Alan Turnpike, featured several stories about "Faceless Alice", a girl seen in the house. She had no facial features but otherwise looked 13 or 14 years old. One story told how she turned a man into a pile of dust. There was a bad quality photo taken in 1976-1986 showing the house with a woman in a dress, supposedly Faceless Alice, looking out the window. Alan himself once saw Faceless Alice stroking the hair of sleeping Alice Parsons. Faceless Alice was an avatar of Alice's daughter created by the female bone spider.

Ram posted to the same website a story of "Faceless Mary", a girl without a face but with an oversized screaming mouth full of teeth. The next day the female bone spider materialised Faceless Mary in the house to scare the Coal Hill defenders.

History
Alice Parsons inherited the house from her parents.

One day Alice found out that she was sharing the house with the female bone spider.

At the end of the 1980s or the beginning of the 1990s, Alan Turnpike was drawn to the house. By that time Alice Parsons' husband had long died and she was living in the house with the spider, who was unseen by anyone else.

Sometime before November 2014, Constantine Oliver offered to buy the house from Alice, but she refused. By this time, the spider gave birth to a baby. Worried about the fate of her eight-legged lodgers, Alice changed her will to keep the house unperturbed for a year after her death and turn it into a shelter for refugees afterwards.

After the old lady died in July 2015, the baby spider was accidentally carried away in her coffin leaving her mother the only inhabitant of the house. The mother spider was using dandelion clocks as a homing device to bring her baby back.

Using fraud, Mr Oliver bought the house from Alice Parsons' estate. He hired men to nightwatch onsite but they all either ran away screaming claiming to have seen monsters or were found cocooned in sticky cobwebs.

In 2016, the spider's call brought Amira to the house. The mother spider liked her and did not let her leave, while herself remaining unseen.

In November 2016, Tanya Adeola was similarly drawn to the house through dandelion clocks. She saw Amira's face in one of the windows and became determined to save the girl who seemed to be in trouble. All Coal Hill defenders participated in Tanya's investigation, with Charlie even taking the job of a nightwatcher for Constantine Oliver Ltd for one day. That night the spider separated Tanya from her friends and kept her in the house alongside Amira.

The next day the house was slated for demolition by Mr Oliver, but Miss Quill prevented it by presenting the original will of Alice Parsons, discovered in the attic. At the same time, Tanya found a way to communicate with the spider, found her lost baby and brought her back to the house. After this the house was returned to Alice Parsons' estate and left in the care of Alan Turnpike, with the spiders remaining in the house until a way would be found to return them to their home planet. (PROSE: The Stone House)