Night One : Staircase House
Staircase House is a cruck timber building and the timbers were dating, using dendrochronology, to 1459-1460.[1] Very little is known of the house’s early history, though it is thought that it was originally the home of the Mayor of Stockport, William Dodge, in 1483.
The first definite residents were the Shallcross family who owned the house from 1605–1730. Part of the landed gentry, it was they who installed the cage newel staircase in 1618, which gives the house its name. The Jacobean staircase is one of only three surviving examples in Britain and has been carefully restored following an almost devastating fire in 1995, the second of two arson attacks on the semi derelict building.
The House was restored after being damaged in the second fire. It was used partly as a warehouse for Gardner’s Green Grocers in the 1990s and as the Staircase Cafe until 1989. It was compulsarily purchased by Stockport Council following a long and gruelling campaign to save it by local conservation group, Stockport Heritage Trust, which began in 1987.
Now open to the public it offers a unique glimpse into the lives of medieval Stockport, the roots of the town, (including what made it a borough) and subsequent stages of development until the 1940s, when it was last used as a residence.
Night Two : Barnes Convalesent Hospital
Barnes Hospital, also known as Barnes Convalescent Home, in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, England, is a former hospital.
A donation of £26,000 for the founding of a new convalescent hospital in Cheadle was made in 1869 by Robert Barnes. Construction of the hospital, named the Barnes Convalescent Home, started in 1871 and was completed in 1875.
Broken remains of three stone high crosses were discovered in 1874 during the construction of the hospital. The location of only one of these is known today; this consists of a crosshead of Celtic cross form with a central boss, and dates from the late 10th or 11th century. It is now located in St Mary’s Church, Cheadle. The other two pieces are said to be part of a much older cross, and the upper part of an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft.
Night Three : Brannigans Night Club
The Albert Hall (Grade II) was designed in eclectic style with Baroque and Gothic elements for the Wesleyan Mission by W. J. Morley in 1910, and after a long period of inactivity is now being utilised once again as Brannigans Night Club. A meeting hall is located on the first floor, with a horseshoe gallery, sloping floor and coloured glass rooflights. The finely detailed buff terracotta is formed into large traceried windows at gallery level, and the interior has a wealth of detail and floral decoration in plaster work and glazed tiles.
First broadcast : 2nd September 2005
A self confessed super fan of Most Haunted and editor of GhostMag.com. Matt’s passion for ghost hunting began when he moved into a haunted house in his second year of university in Leicester! His favourite location is the Niddry Street Vaults in Edinburgh.