Notoriously haunted
Each issue we investigate the most ghostly places in the UK. Here we take a look at the creepy stately home Croxteth Hall in Liverpool
For years, rumours swirled of spirits walking the grand rooms of Croxteth Hall, Liverpool. Then, in 2009, locals’ suspicions appeared to be proved right after back-to-back ghostly happenings were filmed on the historic stately home’s security cameras.
In March of that year, a spooky, white, glowing entity was caught on CCTV, floating through the grounds of the hall. The ghoulish apparition materialised from bushes and appeared to move along a path in the direction of the mansion, which has been lived in by generations of the aristocratic Molyneux family, the Earls of Sefton, since the 1500s.
Then, just a month after the first sighting, CCTV again captured eerie footage of a pale, luminous figure, this time emerging from trees and walking through a fence before vanishing.
Dave Moran, the security guard who spotted the second spectral figure, said: ‘I didn’t know what it was, so I left the office to have a look, but there was no one there.
‘Later, when I was speaking to the other security guards, they told me about the sighting in March when a similar video of what they call the Croxteth Phantom was captured. It was all a bit spooky.’
According to some paranormal experts, the ghost was none other than William Molyneux, second Earl of Sefton. A keen gambler, his spirit is said to wander the grounds of Croxteth Hall every year at around the time of the Grand National, held at nearby Aintree racecourse in late March or early April.
Another theory is that the phantom could have been Hugh Molyneux, the seventh and last Earl of Sefton, who died in 1972.
But it’s not just members of the Molyneux family who are said to linger in the sprawling 230 -room house, which is set in 500 acres of picturesque parkland.
The spirits of servants are also said to haunt the mansion. It’s claimed the sound of ghostly staff at work echoes around the kitchens used to prepare grand banquets for guests, including Queen Victoria, who visited Croxteth Hall in 1851. And the spirit of a housemaid has reputedly been spotted, as well as the ghost of a French chef.
Other spirits reported to haunt the mansion include spectral figures seen sitting in the billiards room, accompanied by the strong smell of cigar smoke, and the spirit of a small boy spotted standing by the fireplace in the dining room.
But perhaps most
