The framed painting, of unknown origin, depicts a young girl dressed in red, with a penetrating gaze. It was twice bought from a charity shop, in Hastings East Sussex, last year, then returned, with those who bought it saying the eyes seemed to follow them around the room and that they could not live with it in their homes.

The charity shop displayed the painting in its window, with a tongue-in-cheek note to say that it was ‘cursed’. The note read: ‘She’s back!!! Sold twice and returned twice! Are you brave enough?’.

Local woman Zoe Elliott–Brown purchased it for £25 and claimed that strange events started to happen almost immediately, including being pursued by a shadowy black figure.

She put the eerie painting up for auction and it was bought by top London attraction The London Bridge Experience for £1,600, with a percentage of the sale being donated to the charity, which offers free and confidential welfare benefits advice, information and representation to people in East Sussex.

Now the attraction, in Tooley Street, near Borough Market, says the painting has blighted it, bringing a chain of unfortunate events. Managing Director James Kislingbury said: “We’ve had a couple of floods on the site between November and December. We came in one morning and the basement was flooded. We’ve had small leaks in the past, but nothing on this scale. We’re lucky that the building is quite robust, so the damage wasn’t too bad, but it was a little bit unexpected.

"I know a cynic would say it’s just a coincidence, but given the volume of things which keep happening, I do find myself questioning whether there’s more to the painting than meets the eye.”

On the day James brought the portrait to the London Bridge Experience, their Wi-Fi went down and they suffered an electrical fault. Staff then reported sightings of shadow figures following them, with one member of staff even saying they kept hearing footsteps behind them, but when they turned around nothing was there.

Two weeks after purchasing the portrait, James went on holiday with his family. He said: “I ended up hurting my shoulder badly and we had problems on the ferry and with the hotel. It was a bit of a blighted holiday to be honest.”

In November, the attraction hired a medium to do a reading of the painting in November. She told them the portrait has links to a hotel in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and that the subject was likely dead when it was painted.

James said: “We heard all sorts of funny noises during the reading. Even the medium was quite puzzled. Our social media chap said he was watching TV when he got home that day and it suddenly fell off the wall and smashed in front of him. It was firmly bolted to the wall, and had been for quite some time, and it literally flew off the wall. It’s bizarre. All sorts of odd things have happened.’

But despite everything, James has no plans to part with the ‘cursed’ painting anytime soon and it still hangs in the reception area of the attraction, which has plague pits in its basement. He said: “I’ve gotten used to it now and tend to brush it off. We plan to keep it, and hope it can find a happy home here.”

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