EXCLUSIVE: Yvette Fielding: 'I accidentally bought a haunted house like in Ghosts - our guests wake up screaming'
Yvette Fielding says she and her family would never have picked their period property in Cheshire if they'd known how many spirits were going to be living alongside them
Yvette Fielding has revealed that she and her husband have often found themselves in scenes at home which could come straight out of hit BBC comedy Ghosts. But the former Blue Peter star, who fronted paranormal TV show Most Haunted for years, claims she’d never have bought their 17th century house in Sandbach, Cheshire, if she’d known how spooky it was.
As she launches a new children’s book, Yvette says she and TV cameraman Karl Beattie once sat at their kitchen table and “called out” to the spirits in the house, soon after they moved in with their two kids in 2003. “Most of them came through and told us their names and confirmed they had each lived in the house,” she said. “They all adored the house and wanted to continue living here with us. They told us they particularly liked it when Karl and I danced in the kitchen. It was funny to think they had been watching us and enjoying it.”
Insisting that she loves her “beautiful, warm, welcoming home” Yvette admitted: “Would we have bought it if we knew it was haunted? Certainly not. There was no way I wanted to live in a haunted house. After all, I spend most of my time investigating haunted locations. The last thing I needed was to live in one.”
BBC hit Ghosts, from the team behind Horrible Histories, ran for five series and four Christmas specials from 2019. Among the ghosts encountered by homeowners Alison and Mike (Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe) are an Edwardian lady of the manor, a World War II army captain, a Stuart “witch”, a cheating Tory MP and a headless Tudor nobleman.
Yvette, 56, says the first ghosts they came across were spirit children called Master Benjamin and Elizabeth - who loved to move objects around. “Going into the kitchen one morning I couldn't get in. Something had been shoved up against the kitchen door. I pushed and pushed and made it in, only to discover a chair had been placed in front of the door. All the kitchen chairs had been placed on top of each other with precision. It was a scary sight to behold and yet miraculous.”
Their "creepy" Tudor house has foundations that go back to the 14th century and her kids William and Mary, who were ten and 15 when they moved in, said it reminded them of the Weasleys’ house in Harry Potter. While their parents tried to protect them from the ghostly goings on, the youngsters soon had their own brushes with the spirit world. “My son Will was in his teens when he saw the bottom of a white dress floating up the stairs. A friend of mine witnessed the apparition too and my mum also saw her walk into the bathroom." Yvette says.
“And when Mary was six she was playing in her bedroom and suddenly the pile of CDs that were stacked on top of her TV all began to fling themselves across the room.” Karl once saw a particularly distinctive ghost. Yvette says: “He was watching TV when he saw a costumed man pass by our living room window in the garden. Karl ran outside but couldn't find him anywhere. When he described him, we both figured out the man was a Cavalier soldier from the English Civil War.”
Yvette said the scariest ghost they’ve encountered in their home is a “dark hooded figure” - which haunts their green bedroom. “Apparently if he doesn't like you, he'll wake you up by staring right into your face as you sleep. Guests have woken up screaming with this ghostly face pressed against theirs.”
Yvette Fielding's Most Haunted Houses, published by Andersen Press, is out now.
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