The Ghost of the Longleat House

The Longleat House is a huge, sprawling mansion in England that holds an eerie past. The house was built in 1568 and still stands tall. Its first owner, Sir John Thynne, kept it in his family for generations. The haunting begins with family members born nearly 200 years after the home was built.

Thomas Thynne lived in the home with his young wife, Lady Louisa Careret. The two were arranged to be married by their families and part of the agreement stated that Lady Louisa could bring her own servants into the home. One of the footmen seemed to be infatuated with the young woman...

Naturally, Thomas was a jealous and bitter man. He had suspected that his wife and the footman were having an affair. One night, the angry husband cornered the footman outside of the huge library in the back of the home. The footman denied the accusations, but that didn't matter in the end...

Thomas pushed the footman down a spiral staircase which caused the footman to break his neck and die on impact. Thomas took it upon himself to bury the body in the dirt floor of the basement. He then told his wife that the footman left to be with his family. 

Lady Louisa did not believe her husband's story but didn't think that her lover was dead. She assumed that her husband had locked him up in one of the many rooms of the home. Night after night, shew ould prowl the hallways searching for him. She tapped on secret panels and busted open locked doors. She never found him.

Eventually, she was so ill with worry that she got pneumonia. She ended up dying during childbirth. Now, visitors believe that she haunts the halls, still searching for her lost love.

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Post originally appeared on Inside Mystery.