Hill Top Road

ATTENTION! SPOILERS AHEAD!! This article contains information from later episodes of The Magnus Archives and may contain major spoilers for the setting and plot. Continue at your own risk.

The house at 105 Hill Top Road is mentioned in numerous statements. It is in the Cowley area of Oxford and has a notably strange tree in the garden. The house is a stronghold of The Web and the latest in a long line of residences built in the location of a Gap in Reality.

Timeline

Before 959: A Saxon man named Eowa builds the first residence in the future location of Hill Top Road and dies after slipping through the gap.

After 1096: Geoffrey Neckam purchases a house on Hill Top Road and eventually begins investigating the strange nature of his home. His studies brings the location to the attention of The Web.

After 1529: A sculptor of puppets lives at Hill Top Road and uses human tendons for his strings. He is eventually slain by a crusading hunter of the Reformation.

After 1642: A writer of anonymous letters lives at Hill Top Road and is eventually buried beneath it by an avatar of the buried with muddy teeth.

Before 1891: A house is built at 105 Hill Top Road.

1891: The house is bought by Walter Fielding, its first recorded owner.

1923: The house is inherited by Walter’s son Alfred.

1957: The house is inherited by Alfred’s son Raymond.

1960s: Raymond Fielding uses the house as a halfway house on behalf of the local diocese for delinquents and troubled youth. Residents include Ronald Sinclair, Doris Hardy, Dick Barridale, and Greg Montgomery. Ronald reports that none of his actions while living at the house are entirely his own, making him stay out of trouble, brush his teeth, etc. Weekly on Sundays, Raymond gathers the children around the Web Table (with the box in the middle); Ronald cannot remember what happens afterward. Once children turn 18, they appear to be taken away by a suited government official.

At some point Agnes Montague moves in. She appears to be around 11 years old at the time. Some time after she moves in Ronald Sinclair turns 18. While waiting to be taken away he is controlled to go back to the house, go into Raymond's study in the basement, pick up the box from the table, and take a bite of the apple inside. Before he can do so, he feels a burning sensation in his cheek where Agnes had kissed him earlier, drops the apple, and escapes. He sees the bodies of other children who he thought had left in the basement, their bodies stuffed with spider eggs.

After Agnes's appearance residents at the halfway house are gradually seen less and less until only Agnes and Raymond remain.

7-8 years after Agnes's appearance: Raymond Fielding disappears. When questioned, Agnes says he has gone away and the house is hers; police investigation reveals the house has been legally signed over to her with no evidence of foul play. Agnes lives in the house for several more years and pets allowed outside tend to vanish around the area.

1974: A toddler living nearby goes missing, and people think that Agnes is responsible for his disappearance. The house soon burns down. The only body discovered in the ruins is Raymond Fielding's, missing its right hand.

At some point after its destruction, Gertrude Robinson visits the ruins of the house and finds a tin box with clippings of Agnes's hair in the ashes.

1974-2005: Some dispute over land ownership prevents anything from being built on the land.

Before 2005: Construction begins on a new house on the land.

2006-2016: Two families have lived in the house since the events of MAG 8 and have noticed no paranormal happenings.

2006/2009: The events detailed in MAG 8 occur. Ivo Lensik works on the construction of a residential building, meets a man calling himself Raymond Fielding, and repeatedly smells burning hair.

• November 23rd: Ivo Lensik is abruptly overwhelmed with hatred for the tree in the garden. He first chops at it to see it appear to bleed, then tears it down to find the box from the Web Table buried underneath. He opens it to see an apple, which rots before his eyes and bursts into spiders. He smashes the box and throws away the remains. Ivo works at the house for another week with no further strange occurrences.
• On the same day, Agnes Montague is found dead, with a severed human hand tied to her wrist whose owner must have died at the same time as her 
• At the same time: Edwin Burroughs performs an exorcism of the site at the request of the nurse at the hospital who treated Ivo and told him about the house. While he is attempting to do the exorcism, he is overwhelmed with a burning sensation, and his mouth says the words "I am not for you. I am marked."
• Note: Father Burroughs statement places these events in 2009 while Ivo Lensik's and Jack Barnabas's statements place the events in 2006.

2009, April: Anya Villette was hired to clean new student housing that had just been built on Hill Top Road. She says she cleaned the house on April 23rd, although when she left it was April 8th again. As she mentions she was dragged through a crack in the basement floor but later woke up in a world where her old friends did not seem to recognise her and there was no record of her, it is unclear whether these events happened in this universe. She also mentions a tree standing in the backyard similar to the tree Ivo Lensik mentions tearing down in 2006.

2018, July: John, Basira, Daisy, and Melanie investigate Hill Top Road. They find a written statement from Annabelle Cane and a tape of the statement in MAG 1.

Post-Change: Annabelle Cane brings Martin Blackwood to the house and gives him a written statement about the location’s past.

Episodes related to Hill Top Road

• MAG 8: Burned Out (Construction of the house)
• MAG 19: Confession/MAG 20: Desecrated Host (Father Burroughs's exorcism of the house)
• MAG 37: Burnt Offering (The Web's binding ritual involving Agnes and Gertrude)
• MAG 59: Recluse (Ronald Sinclair’s childhood in the house on Hill Top Road)
• MAG 67: Burning Desire (Jack Barnabas’ courtship of Agnes Montague)
• MAG 114: Cracked Foundation (Anya Villette’s experience in the house on Hill Top Road)
• MAG 139: Chosen (Statement about Agnes's creation, life, and death)
• MAG 146: Threshold (The Distortion's attempt to lure Marcus MacKenzie into Hill Top Road)
• MAG 147: Weaver (Statement of Annabelle Cane regarding her history)
• MAG 194: Parting (Annabelle Cane and Martin Blackwood begin the return to Hill Top Road)
• MAG 196: This Old House (Statement about Hill Top Road’s past)
• MAG 197: Connected (Episode takes place in Hill Top Road)