Simon Gregson had a hunch things weren’t quite right in his house when objects began disappearing from countertops, the TV turned itself on and things started going bump in the night.
But it all came to a head when his wife was out, and a dark-haired woman in a white nightie appeared.
It was then that Simon, who plays Steve McDonald in Coronation Street, realised they had unwanted housemates: the ghosts of Victorian murder victims and the man who killed them.
The Gregsons began to be plagued in 2011, four years after moving into their six-bedroom dream home in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
Family members refused to stay in their spare bedroom after deciding it was haunted.
Then, the eerie goings-on stepped up when Simon saw the spook they call “the lady in white”.
“It was a Saturday night and my wife Emma was out, but I heard somebody walk around at 1am,” recalls Simon, 48.
“I thought Emma had come home but I called out and there was no answer. I rang her and she said, ‘I’m still out, don’t tell me you’ve seen a woman walking across the landing... I saw her last night.”
Simon’s eldest son Alfie, 15, also began to see the same ghost, as well as the spirits of another woman and a man.
“One day, he came downstairs, saying he saw a woman with a book staring out of the window,” says Simon.
“After that, things escalated for him. He’d seen a male head pop round the door.”
Determined to get to the bottom of it all, Simon enlisted the help of paranormal experts from the TV series Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted, broadcast on Discovery+.
What they found out left Simon and wife of 12 years Emma Gleave stunned. In 1893 a terrible crime was committed just a stone’s throw away from their detached property.
Dubbed the “Wilmslow Tragedy”, William Worth decided to kill his stepdaughter Sarah-Ann, as she’d had a baby out of wedlock and he thought she would bring shame to the family.
He crept into the room where she was sleeping alongside his wife Susanna. But the pair were wearing matching white nightdresses, and in the dark William mistakenly killed the wrong woman.
In a fit of rage at his error, he then slit Sarah-Ann’s throat twice, leaving their bodies lying in the bed.
Paranormal experts Barri Ghai, Jayne Harris and Ian Lawman say they believe the ghosts in Simon’s home were those of Sarah-Ann and Susanna, while the man Alfie saw was William.
In a freaky coincidence, Simon says a few months earlier, he’d downloaded a paranormal research device on his phone called a spirit box. It scans radio frequencies, presenting the audio as the words of ghosts.
One night, Simon, Alfie, and the Corrie star’s two younger sons Harry and Henry Teddy had gone around the house with it, asking questions.
“A name came up as one of the answers and it was Sara,” says Simon. “We didn’t hear that name again until the crew came round to the house and told us about Sarah-Ann.
“The spirit box also said the phrase ‘enchanted bed’, and she was killed in the bed.”
Simon wasn’t expecting such a grim backstory.
He says: “It was a horrendous tragedy, we just thought it was such an awful, sad story.
“It was interesting the ghosts wore white nightgowns. It tied in with what the experts found out about the history of the area and was backed up by a newspaper article from the time.”
Since the experts sent the three ghosts “into the light” – a gentle form of exorcism last year, Simon says the hauntings have largely stopped.
“Alfie still sees things out of the corner of his eye so maybe there’s something residual knocking about,” says Simon, who appeared on I’m A Celebrity in 2021.
“But the rest of us have not seen anything. The weird thing was, at first the house felt a bit empty. But I’m glad they have moved on. Things don’t go missing so much.”
Simon says he would love a Corrie storyline where Steve has a brush with a ghost. He adds: “I’d love to see him get into the supernatural.
“Maybe he could pick somebody up from a house in his taxi, but then suddenly they’re not there. Or pick up Ivy Brennan’s ghost from Freshco’s.”
Whether he gets a spooky storyline for Steve or not, Simon sees himself in Corrie for the long haul. “I’d love to be in the soap for the 70th or 75th anniversary,” he says. “I’m lucky to do what I do. They pay me to mess about, so I’m not going anywhere.”
* Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted is available to stream now exclusively on Discovery+
