THE GHOSTS OF THURSTASTON

Thurstaston is not just a nice name, it is a name of much debate –how did it get its name?

Lying on the Deeside of the Wirral peninsula, Thurstaston's marshes are regularly filled by the Dee. The name Thurstaston is probably derived from “Thorsteinn's ton”, Thorsteinn being a Viking name and “ton” being Old Norse for a farmstead or settlement. The more romantic of the local legends comes from “Thors stone town”, relating to Thors stone, a large sandstone block on the nearby common, its name remembering the Norse god Thor.

The Wirral has a large Viking heritage, and with the common being a high point in the landscape it is not uncommon for the area, and the stone, to be hit by lightning during storms. The Viking settlers interpreted this phenomenon as the god Thor striking the stone in anger with his warhammer. Not surprisingly, they held their religious ceremonies here on the common.

This huge sandstone piece was allegedly used by the Wirral's early Norman settlers, as an altar and place of human sacrifice. Here in the 1930's, a witches coven were found performing their sabbatical rights, this was revived in the early 1980's, but local residents and police put a quick stop to this worship.

Thurstaston is mentioned in the doomsday book, its name then being “Turastaneton”. Thurstaston Hall dates from A.D. 1070, and has passed down through the generations for nearly 600 years, the current owner has traced his ancestry all the way back to these times. The ruins of an earlier hall have also survived to this day.

The hall has its share of ghosts, a white lady has been well documented in many books on the paranormal, the figure has been seen many times in the west wing bedrooms, appearing to be distraught, wringing her hands, and looking for something. The story behind this haunting tells of the lady of the manor, possibly a Glegg, who killed her infant son, and upon being disturbed, dropped the knife. When the knife was finally found by one of her servants, she was tried, and brought to justice, she continues to search for the weapon, in order to escape her punishment of execution. The white lady was last seen in 1980, when a team of archaeologists from Liverpool university, witnessed the phantom in one of the halls' many windows.

In August 1971, a team of water board workers stumbled upon a tunnel, whilst laying new pipes, but were scared witless by the screaming emanating from within. The tunnel appeared to be an old smugglers tunnel, the noises - who knows?

Back to the common, this has to be one of the Wirral's most frequented places for ghosts, the nocturnal visitors are often found roaming the common; In the gullies that run from the high ground to the sea, the spectres of smugglers, who were killed by excise men in their struggles to escape justice, their howls can be heard on dark, stormy nights; The day trippers, who have stumbled and fallen down the steep embankment on the common western side, screaming for help; and the many people found hanged here from suicide, have been seen swinging from the birch trees that grow here.