Broughton Hall is haunted by the spirit of a small boy. Photo Credit: Chris Heaton.
“Before I bought Broughton Hall, it was a home to elderly nuns who used this room as their chapel!” John Caudwell quipped.
Billionaire John Caudwell said the Broughton Hall mansion is haunted by a ghost child who was killed in the English Civil War.
While Caudwell said he had never seen the spirit himself, some of his guests have previously reported the presence of a frightened boy in the gallery.
As Caudwell tells it, “The boy was alone in the house. All the men had gone out hunting as soldiers of the Commonwealth came down the drive.
“He shouted: ‘We are for the king’ – and one of the soldiers lifted a musket and shot him dead. He fell in the Long Gallery, crawled into one of the bedrooms and bled to death. Legend has it that, every so often, those blood stains come oozing through.
“There are also stories about this ghost brushing past people on the stairs. People who think they are in tune with the spirit world always say they can feel something, but it’s warm, not malevolent.”
Caudwell continues, “I’ve never seen that, but there’s a strange thing where several women have slept in the room and felt the bed vibrate.”
Broughton Hall is a Georgian manor built in the 1600s. The English Civil War, which started in 1642, was fought between the Cavaliers who supported King Charles I, and the Commonwealth who fought for Parliament. The bloody conflict eventually resulted in the execution of King Charles and England becoming a republic under Oliver Cromwell.
John Caudwell has hosted charity balls at the Broughton Hall mansion. He also owns one of the UK’s most expensive homes in Mayfair, London, which is worth an estimated £250m. █
