Ghost hunter Nat says it’s definitely not a mark on the wall
Ghost hunter Nat says it’s definitely not a mark on the wall
A woman says she saw a ghost in an abandoned Liverpool pub. Nat Thomas, who is in her 40s and from St Helens, claims she saw an “apparition” in the former Crying Tree Restaurant and Bar on Grange Lane, Gateacre.
Nat is part of Haunted St Helens and visited the venue last month with her friends, including Louise and Lee Fine from Power Crew UK Urban, who are based in Leeds. Nat says her friends told her that the building was a “paranormal hotspot”.
She told the ECHO: “We’re going around the building, we’re filming everything. We’re asking the spirits to come and speak to us and things like this ’cause that’s what we do. We go to abandoned down haunted places in hope that we might capture some evidence.
“As we’re in the pub, two people are upstairs in two different separate rooms. One of the girls has sat on the stairs and she snaps the picture – you can see an apparition walking past.
“You can literally see an apparition in between like the spindles of the top of the massive staircase that was there. It was amazing. We were all blown away about it because it’s a one in a million snapshot.”
Nat claims the apparition wasn’t a mark on the wall as there was none there. She added there was no fire damage and the pub itself is in an okay condition.
Nat says it’s very rare to see a ghost during her paranormal investigations. She said: “You don’t find many apparitions in our field. They are very rare. I’ve got about three and I’ve been doing it for two years now.”
When asked why one appeared in the old Crying Tree, Nat said: ”I haven’t got a clue. I’ve caught one in a graveyard before. I’ve caught one at another place where I can’t remember the second place.
“You just get lucky. As I say, it’s so rare to capture a full apparition. It really is. We get mist and we get lights, things like that. We get like partial manifestations, but not a full apparition.”
Nat reacted to the ghost with excitement rather than horror because of her experiences with the paranormal. She said: “I’m not scared at all. I absolutely love it.
“I actually get really excited. It all happened when I was a teenager and I lived in a haunted home in Kirkby.
“Our house was haunted and I started seeing things and I knew it was a woman who was living in the home. She started doing things – like one day she tried to push me over when I was leaning over the bath. I actually felt the hands on my back.
“Another time, she actually showed herself to me. I’ve never screamed and ran so much in my life. I ran out of the house and I refused to go back in for hours.
“Ever since then, all I wanted to do is just showcase evidence of the paranormal. That’s all I wanna do. I’m absolutely obsessed with it. It’s like an addiction for me.”
Nat contacts businesses around the north west to ask if she can do a ghost hunt. She occasionally does house cleansing of family homes too.
It’s a role Nat relishes. She said: “I actually believe it was a bit of a calling. I don’t class it as like a job or anything like that.
“People get called to do work for the church. I want to prove that spirits are real because you get so many people saying, that’s fake, that’s not true. I’m like, no, it’s not because I see them and I feel them.”
The ECHO previously reported that the venue was originally called Gorsey Cop, an Anglo-Saxon name meaning top of a hill or rise covered in gorse.
The manor first appeared in the 1881 census and was built between 1871 and 1881 for a wealthy gentleman named Harold Cunningham. Cunningham was a Manchester cotton broker who was said to enjoy the superb views across the farmland and heathland to Huyton and Prescot.
During the war, the grandiose old mansion was used by the armed forces as an officers’ club. Hollywood star David Niven was a regular visitor while serving as a lieutenant in the army.
After the war, the house became a residence, then stood vacant for a while, before an entrepreneur turned it into a nightclub and the cellar was converted into a casino. When that failed, someone else thought it would be better suited as a restaurant. For years, it was known as the Grange Manor Restaurant, hosting dinner dances, weddings and conferences.
The business changed hands again in the 2000s, and in 2011, it reopened as the Crying Tree Restaurant and Bar. But by 2014, the building closed its doors for good, and it has stood empty ever since.
Earlier this year, the ECHO reported how in a bid to tackle the mess that had began to build up outside the building, the city council had begun to seek a warrant from the courts to enter the private land after an enforcement notice seemingly went ignored.
Fly-tipping has become a constant issue on the site with what appears to be building materials left dumped outside the former entrance of late.
An enforcement notice was issued regarding the fly-tipping issues last year but according to an email seen by the ECHO, this went unheeded.
A planning application to turn the venue into a nursery was submitted in 2022. Most recently, an extension was granted in October for plans to reimagine the location as a children’s day nursery.
The ECHO reported last month that these plans will go before Liverpool Council’s planning committee for a decision to be made.
Entering a privately owned property/site is considered trespassing which is a civil offence in the UK.
