Westrop House

The house was built for Squire William Crowdy in 1818 and his ghost may still be incarcerated here. It is reported that he used to perform some form of penance walking around the local streets with a halter around his neck. Even after he died, his ghost still performed the same act, and drawing the shafts of a coach noisly in front of his house and in the yard. An exorcism was attempted where Crowdy appeared to be amenable to spectral incarceration as long as it was in a cider barrel. There was such a receptacle in the basement and his phantom was trapped within, the cellar being bricked up afterwards; recent reports state that this area has since been opened up. There have been sightings of other phantoms in modern times; in the 1980s a decorator was pasting wallpaper in the hallway when he saw a lady wearing a long dress in the gallery. Unnerved, he went home for the rest of the day. Another tale tells of a mother and her son who were living here and heard a knock at their door at bedtime. When they opened it, they saw the shape of a man who gradually faded away.

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