A look back at the Staffordshire property once dubbed the 'Haunted House'

To the older folk, it was Bilbrook Hall. But to Geoffrey Dobson and his young pals, it was The Haunted House.

And thank you to Mr Dobson, got in touch with his memories of the long-disappeared Bilbrook property which we first featured in December 2023.

"I could write a book about Bilbrook," said Mr Dobson, who lives these days in Fordhouses.

Bilbrook Hall had been empty for years when demolition teams moved in on June 13, 1952, to destroy it with explosives. Young Geoffrey had by then moved from the village, but he remembers it being quite a childhood playground.

"We used to call it The Haunted House. We kids used to play there. There was so much to do in there – so many rooms we could play in. We had a great lot of fun for a few years," he said.

"The ceiling was ornate and the rooms had micro piping throughout the house with piano wires running through them to alert the domestic staff to the people's needs.

"It was unbelievable. The floors were all wooden oak block floors. Everywhere was really good quality stuff."

Despite the name they had given the house, nobody had actually seen a ghost.

"We used to go in the loft. There were like tunnels we could get into. The loft was full of jackdaws, crows, and magpies.

"It also had a large cellar, plus a salt cellar for hanging meat. The building was in quite a bad state. Nearly all the windows had gone. There were odd things like curtains hanging down.

"The orchard had 15ft walls around it. It was enormous. It had all the fruit trees, plus peaches and apricots.

"We never knew who lived there. Somebody said they thought the husband had died and the wife had moved out."

As to where the hall was, he says: "We used to get in to it from a footpath by the Holy Cross Church, then across the field to the actual hall. There was a little coppice. The footpath was off Bilbrook Road. It goes up to Elliotts Lane at Codsall.

"There's a big estate on the site of the hall now, Cherry Tree Lane and Lime Tree Road. There used to be a pub at the back of that called the Grange years ago, but it was knocked down."

'The hall was demolished'

Mr Dobson does not remember the hall being demolished as he had moved away by then, but says the 1952 picture we carried of the building on the eve of its demolition was exactly as he remembered it.

Mr Dobson has plenty of other memories of the village.

"The Manor House in Bilbrook Road was next to the footpath which went down to the brook. The Twentyman family lived there. They gave a donation to Holy Cross Church to build a new entrance to it. There was another great big house next door which had stables and horses. I don't know the people who lived there.

"There was also a cottage in Bilbrook Road called Westley Cottage built on sandstone by Joeys Lane.

"Sadly I moved to Tettenhall in 1952 and I missed the time I had there."

According to a report in the Star from the time of the demolition, the hall and its grounds had been owned since 1939 by M A Boswell (Contractors) Ltd of Wolverhampton, who wanted the building removed to make way for housing.

It said the hall had last been occupied in 1939 by the Loveridge family and was believed to date from between 1730 and 1750.