Simon Gregson's house was haunted by Victorian murder victims.
Simon Gregson discovers who has been haunting his house
The 48-year-old actor - who has played taxi driver Steve McDonald in ITV1 soap opera 'Coronation Street' since 1989 - lives in Cheshire with his wife Emma Gleave and recalled spotting a "lady in white" walk across his landing in 2011 before discovering the "tragic" story from 1893.
He told The Daily Mirror newspaper: "It was a Saturday night and my wife Emma was out, but I heard somebody walk around at 1am. I thought Emma had come home but I called out and there was no answer. I rang her and she said, ‘I’m still out, don’t tell me you’ve seen a woman walking across the landing... I saw her last night. "
The soap star - who has sons Alfie, 15, Harry, 13, and seven-year-old Henry with Emma - went on to add that his eldest had begun to see the same ghost as well as the spirits of another woman and a man and after calling in the paranormal experts from Discovery+ show 'Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted', was shocked to discover that the Wilmslow Tragedy had occurred so close to his house, which saw a young woman named Sara-Ann murdered in her sleep by her stepfather William Worth for having a baby out of wedlock, just moments after he had mistakenly killed his wife Susanna, who had been lying next to her.
Months earlier, Simon had downloaded a spirit box app onto his phone in the hopes of detecting a ghost and in an eery coincidence, was presented with the name Sara.
He said: "One day, he came downstairs, saying he saw a woman with a book staring out of the window. After that, things escalated for him. He’d seen a male head pop round the door.
"A name came up as one of the answers and it was Sara. We didn’t hear that name again until the crew came round to the house and told us about Sarah-Ann. The spirit box also said the phrase ‘enchanted bed’, and she was killed in the bed. It was a horrendous tragedy, we just thought it was such an awful, sad story.
"It was interesting the ghosts wore white nightgowns. It tied in with what the experts found out about the history of the area and was backed up by a newspaper article from the time."
Ever since cracking the mystery surrounding the ghosts, the former 'I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!' contestant explained that the spirts appear to have "moved on" but noted that the house felt "empty" without them at first.
He said: "Alfie still sees things out of the corner of his eye so maybe there’s something residual knocking about. But the rest of us have not seen anything. The weird thing was, at first the house felt a bit empty. But I’m glad they have moved on. Things don’t go missing so much."
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