Name: Sutton Scarsdale Hall
Locality: Palterton Lane, Sutton cum Duckmanton, Derbyshire S44 5UR
Built: 1724
Owner: English Heritage
Grade I
Website: EH
History: Sutton Scarsdale Hall is North of Derby, you can reach it via the M1 motorway, where you will see it opposite Bolsover Castle on the other side of the hill. There is a footpath that leads you right from the Hall to the castle, but be prepared to walk 4 miles. This now skeletal ruin was built in 1724 by Smith of Warwick and it is an 18th century remodeling of an earlier house. It used to be one of Derbyshire finest houses in its heyday similarly matched to Chatsworth House. The remaining artifacts from the building now reside in a Philadelphia and Los Angeles museums.
Ghostly manifestations: The White Lady.
*Ghostly anomalies: Sutton Scarsdale Hall has the reputation to be a very haunted house, witnesses have seen disembodied floating body parts, footfall and strange tobacco smells, sometimes unexplained screams. Moving shadows have also been captured in the cellar area by paranormal investigators*
Some of the weirdest things have been seen in the cellar area. This area is cordoned off to the public, there is a small aperture where you can see into, but it has a substantial iron grill over it. Apparently there are tunnels that run from these cellars. There has been talk of some dreadful act that took place in the cellar. This is the main area of all the accounted paranormal activity. Shadows have been seen whilst filming in the cellar too, I managed to put my night shot camera in but I didn't see anything.
During the latter half of the 1960's Sutton Hall was the centre of a ghostly enigma. A Bolsover man and his son reported seeing a ghostly apparition early in the morning moving between the church of St. Marys and the hall, the 'white lady' was seen gliding through the churchyard without legs, wearing a white hood with slits for eyes and crying like a baby or sobbing like a woman.
When interviewed the vicar of Saint Mary's church, the Reverend Stanley Hare said, "It flies through the bushes and makes very weird noises at night and could very well frighten anybody".
The sounds of echoing footfalls have been reported coming from this shell of a former grand hall, and strange floating lights seen after dark.
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We traveled to best part of 50 miles to see the ruined hall. But when we got there it was crawling with adolescents on BMX's so we had a brief walk around then left.
