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Many ghosts have been seen at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool over the years. JOANNA HAGUE went on a ghost hunt to see for herself…
The parkland surrounding Croxteth Hall in Liverpool offers several hectares of nature, paths and trails to explore. It also has a beautiful walled garden in the grounds, full of history.
The Molyneux family occupied the hall from the 16th century until 1972, when the last Earl of Sefton died.
Over the years there have been several ghost sightings at Croxteth Hall, both in the building and in the grounds. Witnesses have reported seeing apparitions of the 6th Earl of Sefton, a young child, and a shadowy figure lurking in the dark.
Footsteps can be heard throughout the building and the doors in the kitchen open and close automatically.
Croxteth Hall has been occupied for over 400 years, so there are bound to be former residents who don’t want to leave. I know I wouldn’t do that.
My Croxteth Hall Ghost Hunting Experience
For the second treat of my birthday my brother took me to Croxteth Hall. The anticipation I felt during the drive there was enormous.
We started on the top floor, which was known as the servants’ quarters.
Placing one Brake pod outside the door, we closed it behind us. If anything walked down the hallway to the door, the alarm would go off and notify us.
We installed the EMF detector and digital recorder, and we had some new equipment with us tonight: a motion-activated teddy bear, some cat balls, and a motion robot! It wasn’t long before the EMF detector started flashing and we could hear knocking sounds in response to us calling out.
Then without warning, the Rempod outside started beeping, indicating movement next to it. I immediately shouted hello, and from where I was sitting I could see through the crack in the door that no one was there. Since we also brought some cat balls with us tonight, I now know what this sounds like, but they are attractive to ghosts because they require little energy to move. The EMF meter continued to flash in response to our questions, and the ball began to flash.
With the robot in the middle we gave a demonstration to all the ghosts of how it works. It follows movements with its head and can move forward and backward when something comes close. We shouted and without warning the robot moved its head 90 degrees towards us. This indicated that he had picked up something and turned towards it. We couldn’t see anything with our eyes.
We decided to move to another room. This room has a bed that moves when people sit on it. We placed the Rempod outside the door again, in case someone walked by. We then closed the door.
On the fireplace we place the digital recorder, an EMF meter and a cat ball. In the center of the room the EMF meters started lighting up before we finished shouting. What lit up the meters seemed to move between the center of the room, the fireplace, and back to the center.
Again there was a lot of tapping and knocking as we shouted, but to my great disappointment the bed did not move.
In the second half we decided to explore the kitchen. We walked in and decided that we needed to look in all the rooms that ran off the main kitchen and see where each hallway off the kitchen went so we could easily spot if anyone could be hiding. This was one of the funniest things that happened on this ghost hunt.
When my brother looked into one of the rooms, which could have been a pantry when it was a working kitchen, and said, “It’s a ghost.” I ran there, all excited, and sure enough there was a ghost in the room. A Halloween decoration hid behind the door; it was a ghost in a sheet. Obviously we had to take a photo for the comedic value of being able to say we caught a ghost on camera.
We had the digital recorder on, but I didn’t feel like anyone was with us. We moved to the servants’ dining room next to the kitchen. We did a lot of shouting, used the brake pod and cat balls and even tried a Ouija board, but again it seemed to have gone flat and we didn’t experience much activity other than a few mild spikes, so we left the room and went to the last room of the night.
This was a room next to the main kitchen. We had the brake pod installed, the recorder on and the emf detector in the door. We started shouting. It wasn’t long before tapping occurred in response to our questions. The room itself felt very static; it was not a pleasant feeling, as if the air was electric. Apart from the cranes there wasn’t much activity so we decided to call it a day.
Have you been to Croxteth Hall in Liverpool? Tell us about your experiences in the comments below!
