Chapter 3
The Mystery Deepens
1950
THE SEANCE ROOM
1951
THE BIG FOOT PRINT
ALDINE HOUSE
1952
DOMINION OF DEATH
DOPPELGÄNGER
PEEL CASTLE
ST DUNSTAN'S MONKS
1954 - 1957
TUNNELS AND GRAVES
1958
CAPESTHORNE HALL
1959
HILL HOUSE
1958
35
YEARS
CAPESTHORNE HALL
“Capesthorne Hall, near Macclesfield in Cheshire is the ninety-eight roomed home of Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport.”
“One of the well-known big houses long reputed to be haunted, with its ghostly columns of figures, a Lady in Grey — and a severed arm!”
“Davenport took me on a tour of those parts of the house that had been the scene of apparently inexplicable happenings.”
Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport (1903–1989)
“Perhaps significantly, all the unexplained happenings here have been reported from the original portion of this ancient towered and domed mansion…”
“…which was rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in 1861.”
“Sir Walter himself saw
'a line of shadowy, spectre-like figures descending the steps into the family vault’
in his private chapel…”
“…and briefly glimpsed a grey form gliding along a corridor in the house.”
“His son William was startled one still, windless night in 1958.”
“He was abruptly awakened by a rattling window and woke up to see ‘an arm - with nothing attached to it - reaching out, as if from nowhere’…”
“He assumed the head and body were outside the window, and leaping out of bed he rushed to investigate, throwing open the window. Outside there was nothing to be seen - and there was a sheer 30 foot drop to the courtyard below”
“Since then the bedroom has been known as ‘The Room with the Severed Arm’.”
“I have to say that one curious incident at Capesthorne has remained in my memory. I was being led by Davenport towards one of the ‘very haunted’ rooms in this 98-room mansion when Sir Walter was called away. I walked on and, after a few moments, as I approached the aforementioned room we heard footsteps from inside it, approaching us.”
“They grew louder and more distinct and sounded quite heavy. At first I assumed our host had made his way ahead and was coming to meet us. But as I reached the door, the footsteps on the other side also seemed to reach the door, and as I hesitated, I was astonished to hear a familiar voice boomed out behind me! Sir Walter had returned.”
“So who was on the other side of the door? I lost no time in opening it; inside the room was deserted, not a soul to be seen (Sir Walter approved that expression I remember), and there was no way anyone could possibly have disappeared, silently, in the few seconds it took us to open the door after hearing the footsteps just the other side.”
“It was one of those moments you wish you had recorded and sent someone on ahead to enter the room by another door; now it was too late. I wondered whether the whole episode could possibly be explained by some kind of echo of my own footsteps, but immediate experimentation proved this not to be the case.”
“An echo of some past event? Some odd acoustic quirk? Some trick played on me (and on Sir Walter who also heard the footsteps)? Or a manifestation of something not of this world?”
Underwood first wrote about Capesthorne Hall in the entry 'Macclesfield, Cheshire’ in his Gazetteer of British Ghosts (1971). and subsequently in the entry ‘Capesthorne’ for Peter Underwood’s Guide to Ghosts and Haunted Places.
