SPOOKY MANSION
Each issue we investigate the most ghostly buildings in Britain. Here we take a look at Northwood House in Cowes, Isle of Wight
Where sorrow seeps from the walls
If you visit magnificent Northwood House in Cowes, Isle of Wight, you might just catch a glimpse of a woman walking through the lavish ballroom of the grand Georgian stately home. But she isn’t a tourist or member of staff – she’s one of Northwood House’s many resident spirits.
The woman, who wears a floppy hat and white apron, is a ghostly matron, believed to have worked at the Grade II*listed building when it was a hospital in the First World War.
According to Northwood House Project Manager Tim Wander, the spirit tends to appear in June.
Tim says: ‘She’s been seen in several rooms in the house, especially in the ballroom, which used to be the hospital ward, and the corridor leading to her office.
‘During one paranormal investigation we caught her on camera. She appeared as a bright light and you could make out her dress.
‘And once, a member of staff saw a lady in a private area of the house. He went after her to tell her she shouldn’t be there but she’d disappeared.’
Northwood House, now a venue for events, was again used as a hospital during the Second World War, a conflict that saw one of the darkest events in the building’s history.
Seventy people were killed in two nights of enemy bombing raids on the island during May 1942. Twenty-seven bodies that couldn’t be identified were stored in the library, before being taken on handcarts and buried in a communal grave.
Fast forward to the 1980s when a guest at a wedding ceremony being held in the room had a chilling vision.
Tim explains: ‘In the middle of the service, a lady stood up white-faced. She’d seen an image of trestle tables lined up with coffins on top. She was so upset she ran out. I believe it’s possible that traumatic period replays in the walls of the room.’
People injured in the bombing raids were treated in an operating theatre set up in the former kitchens in the house.
Paranormal investigators report hearing sighing and scratching at the door of the theatre. One team were investigating in there when ‘Run – now!’ flashed up on a device.
‘We also often smell strange scents, too,’ says Tim. ‘Sometimes when I’m locking up at night,
I can smell tobacco. I think it’s a former caretaker making sure I lock up properly. I find he has already locked doors for me and we even hear his keys jangling!’
Another ghost is a man in a top hat who stares out of an upstairs window. People walking in the parkland surrounding the house regularly report seeing the spirit, believed by some to be former owner, wealthy merchant George Ward, who bought the house in 1793.
The former servants’ quarters is another hub of spooky activity. The atmosphere in one room is so spine-chilling, mediums refuse to enter. Paranormal investigators hear scratching and tapping and see shadowy shapes move past windows.
Dan Marchant, from paranormal investigation team
Southern Ghost Society, captured an audio clip of a spirit’s voice in the servants’ quarters.
Says Dan: ‘The voice said “1,2,3”, but at first we didn’t have a clue what it was referring to. Then we found out that the rooms used to be named Rooms 1, 2, and 3.’
There is also paranormal activity in the cellars, where people who contracted Spanish Flu were taken in 1919. Around 100 victims of the pandemic died there and people often hear chilling scraping noises.
But the cellars also had a far happier use. They housed kitchens where feasts were prepared during the house’s Victorian heyday, when it hosted balls and banquets attended by royalty and aristocrats.
Dan believes he came across a spirit dating from that period. He remembers: ‘We’d split into groups and my brother, Lee, spotted a woman who looked so real he even stopped the investigation to make sure she wasn’t someone from my group.
‘My team was in the cellars at the time and we heard her footsteps above us walking from the ballroom into what was once the Ladies Room, where women would have retired after a meal. For both our teams to have picked up on her separately was incredible.’
Ghostly activity also abounds in the park surrounding Northwood House. One particularly sad tale tells how Lieutenant John Sutton got into a drunken argument with Major Orlando Lockyear in a pub in Cowes in 1817. They agreed to a duel at Northwood House the following morning at dawn. Lockyear shot Sutton through the heart with a flintlock pistol and he died on the steps leading to the ballroom. He was just 22.
Sutton was buried in nearby St Mary’s Churchyard. At night, a glowing orb has been spotted floating between the graveyard and the steps where Sutton’s life ended so violently.
Although once a go-to destination for high-society revellers, Northwood House has also seen more than its fair share of tragedy. Which is why it has so many tales to tell… and so many ghosts to see.