Is Waterlooville haunted? Ghost stories and local legends

Waterlooville is a young town by English standards. It takes its name from a coaching-era pub, and many of the ghost stories attached to it are recent, born in the age of housing estates and hitchhikers rather than castles. Nearby villages and the Portsmouth and Portchester shores add older and darker tales. Everything below comes from a source we opened, and we say who is telling each story. These are legends and reports, not proof of anything.

A town named after a pub

According to Wikipedia's Waterlooville article, the town's name comes from the Heroes of Waterloo pub, which stood at what was then called Wait Lane End, where stagecoach horses waited. The story is that on the pub's opening day in 1815, soldiers who had just landed at Portsmouth from the Battle of Waterloo stopped to celebrate. Wikipedia's entry on Purbrook Heath adds that the old A3 London Road was used by troops returning from the battle, and that Purbrook Heath Road is said to be of Roman origin. Keep that road in mind, because it matters later.

Hopfield House

The Paranormal Database lists Hopfield House among Waterlooville's reported hauntings. It says the spirit that haunts the building is said to have driven two previous owners to tragic ends because he wanted only his family and their descendants to live there. A 2017 blog, Emily Jessica Turner's "Remaining wraiths: haunted Waterlooville", calls it probably the town's most famous haunted location, describes it as a Victorian Gothic house and says it was built on a former hop field by a man called Edward Fawkes. The blog cites no sources for that, so treat the name as local lore.

The pipe smoker of Ferndale

The Paranormal Database records a figure at Ferndale said to be a drover who hanged himself from an oak tree "or so a legend says". It adds that the phantom is reported still to hold a pipe, leaving a smell of pungent tobacco after it vanishes, and dates its report to 2010. The same blog puts the drover's death in the 1850s, again without a source. The detail that lingers is the smell: a story told by the nose rather than the eye.

The girl on Hulbert Road

On Hulbert Road, the Paranormal Database logs a report from November 1976 of a girl who stands in front of oncoming traffic and vanishes when hit. She is said to be the ghost of a hitchhiker struck by a car. Variations of the tale, including drivers who pick up a passenger who disappears before the journey ends, appear in the 2017 blog, which gives no sources. It is a classic "vanishing hitchhiker" legend, and a very local version of it.

Roman soldiers on the Wecock Farm estate

Shortly after the Wecock Farm estate was finished in 1974, says the Paranormal Database, reports came in of poltergeist-like activity, and some witnesses reported phantom Roman troops. The record is a user submission, so it is the thinnest of our stories. But a Roman soldier on a modern estate is exactly the sort of tale that grows where a new street meets a very old landscape, and the area's Roman-road folklore gives the legend a backdrop.

Merchistoun Hall, Horndean

Merchistoun Hall in Horndean has an unusually well-documented history for a haunted house. According to the paranormal group PIGS, Admiral Charles Napier renamed the estate in the mid-19th century after his ancestral home in Scotland. It had previously been known as Quallets, The Grove and Grove Lodge. The present house dates from the early 1800s, was used by the army in wartime, was bought by A W White & Company in 1942 and was later run as a furniture store, before being acquired by the Horndean Community Association.

PIGS says locals in the late 1980s reported "a red eyed specter looking out of the window" of what was once the admiral's bedroom. The Paranormal Database adds a grey lady and a ghostly admiral, and says a ghost-hunting team in July 2023 reported strange banging and a recording of a voice saying "I am dead", as reported in local press. Those are claims by investigators, not established facts.

Charlie of Havant Forest

The Paranormal Database has a Havant tale from the old forest, at a spot it calls Gypsies' Clump. "Charlie" died while drinking gin on horseback: his mare galloped along a darkened path, he hit an overhanging branch and was killed almost at once. The database says the wounds are immediately apparent on his phantom. It lists the source as published media and gives no date, so this is a legend in the true sense.

Wymering Manor, Portsmouth

A few miles south, over Portsdown Hill, Wymering Manor is Portsmouth's oldest building. Wikipedia says it was first recorded in 1042 and appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, and that most of the present structure dates from the 16th century. It is Grade II* listed and, since 2013, run by the Wymering Manor Trust.

According to Wikipedia, it has been called Hampshire's most haunted house by David Scanlan, founder of the Hampshire Ghost Society, who managed the youth hostel there from 2002 to 2006. Wikipedia also reports sudden drops in temperature, children whispering, furniture moving and sightings of more than twenty ghosts. The Paranormal Database says one former resident called the phantoms "quite nice and quite friendly". Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt, quoted by the BBC via Wikipedia, has said the ghosts "will always be part of the manor but there is so much more to the house".

Portchester Castle

Wikipedia describes Portchester as a Roman Saxon Shore fort, probably built around 285 to 290 CE and called the best preserved Roman fort north of the Alps. In 1415 the Southampton Plot against Henry V was uncovered there, and from the late 17th century the castle served as a prison, housing over 7,000 French prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars.

Against that background, the Paranormal Database says the pale figure most commonly seen is thought to be a woman named Charlotte, linked to a black-haired girl said to tend a grave in the church by the castle. It also lists a monk walking outside the front of the castle, a Roman soldier and a lady on a white horse. The castle is managed by English Heritage, whose visiting page currently lists it as open daily, 10am to 4pm with last entry at 3.30pm. Check the prices and opening times page before you go.

The gibbet chains of Portsmouth Harbour

The grimmest story has a firm date. James Aitken, known as John the Painter, was hanged on 10 March 1777 from the mizzenmast of HMS Arethusa at Portsmouth dockyard for arson in the royal dockyards, Wikipedia says. The mast was re-erected at the dockyard entrance so that as many people as possible could watch. The article calls it the highest gallows ever used in an execution in England and says about 20,000 people attended. His body was then gibbeted at Fort Blockhouse as a warning.

The Paranormal Database's harbour entry says that in windy weather the chains of Aitken's gibbet can still be heard clinking. Only the execution is documented history. The clinking is the legend.

Places you can visit

Portchester Castle is open to visitors through English Heritage, so check its page for current times. Wymering Manor is run by the Wymering Manor Trust, so check the Trust's website for visiting dates. The Heroes of Waterloo, the pub behind the town's name, is a real pub with its own history, though we have not verified its current opening hours. Merchistoun Hall was acquired by the Horndean Community Association, according to PIGS, and ghost hunts there are run by outside groups.

A note on the stories

Paranormal Database entries are collected reports, often from published media or user submissions, and some are decades old. We have attributed each one and have not tried to prove or disprove it. If you know a story we have missed, tell us where you heard it.