Phillip & Holly Meet 'The Most Haunted Doll' In The UK
October 28, 2021 1:42 PM ‐ Television
This article is more than three years old.
With just a few days until Halloween, ITV's 'This Morning' had a treat for viewers as hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby met "Scary Mary," a doll that is said to be the most haunted in the UK.
The proud owner of the spooky artefact is Craig Longson, who appeared via a live link-up with the midmorning show to introduce viewers to his haunted toy.
Craig was speaking to the show's hosts, who looked the part in their Halloween costumes, from his Haunted Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. He was surrounded by various haunted items such as a copy of the famous crying boy painting, Ouija boards and of course the haunted doll itself.
Craig, who opened the museum on City Road in Fenton at the end of August, then introduced Mary. Pointing at an eerie-looking doll in a red dress, he said, "this is Mary, we class Mary as the most haunted doll in the United Kingdom at the moment. She's an amazing doll, she dates back to around 1951, so she's got a great age to her."
The ghost hunter continued, "we sort of adopted Mary in the middle of last year, so we've had her for just over a year now, and as soon as we had her she started being quite active within our room."
We're then shown some CCTV footage from the museum which shows Mary rocking in her chair. Craig says, "she's been seen many times on CCTV where the chair's spun from side to side, the chair's rocked, her eyes have moved, she's thrown herself out of the chair on two different occasions. She lights up lights that are around her on the equipment sometimes."
Craig goes on to say, "we've had four members of the public on a tour here and she was actually on the table in the centre of the room and she was rocking in front of them. Another three ladies who came and were having a tour, and they actually witnessed her eyes moving all the way over to the right."
A shocked Holly said, "doesn't that just scare the living daylights out of you? Like doesn't that just make you go 'I'm wanna get rid of her?'" But Craig says the creepy doll isn't going anywhere, "she's amazing, she's a great artefact and one of the best we've come across in all my years of doing this."
Wanting to find out a little more about Craig's paranormal background, Phillip asked, "so it was your grandfather who started you off down this path wasn't it?" Craig said "yeah, it is indeed, many years ago when I was about ten years old. Shortly after my grandfather had passed, we actually felt his energy around us." Craig says he was too young to really understand what was going on, but it had him intrigued by it all.
Craig told the show's hosts that his childhood home was haunted, "the house that we lived in was very very active." Craig went on to say, "my dad, in the middle of the night, you would see him sitting on the end of his bed. He would proclaim to be talking to his aunty who passed away many years ago."
In his twenties, Craig formed a group of paranormal investigators, known as Ghost Hunters of Stoke-on-Trent. Craig said, "three of us started going around the UK to different locations and seeing what we could pick up on and experience for ourselves within the industry and it kind of escalated from there."
After this Craig went on to start his own paranormal events company, that took him to many weird and wonderful places. Craig then told Phillip and Holly about the strangest supernatural thing he's experienced during a 2015 ghost hunt at Mill Street Barracks. He said, "we saw a lady there that was, the only words I can use, she seemed as though she was possessed by something and it was witnessed by everyone on that night." Craig described the incident as "a pretty scary thing to witness."
All this lead Craig to open the Haunted Museum & Spirit Shop in Stoke, which houses his collection of artefacts, which until August he was storing in his own home.
Craig then gave Phillip and Holly a quick virtual tour of the museum. Craig moved towards a large wooden coffin, "a couple of the main features that we like to look at is the coffin, this was donated to us last year by a local lady and originally this came from her pub, which was a haunted pub."
Craig says that the coffin was use due the war to being soldiers bodies back into the country. He says, "there are over a thousand bodies that have been documented to have been in that coffin." He says this results in a lot of paranormal activity, "we get a lot of bangs, scratches, knocks around the coffin."
Craig also shows us a Victorian pram that is said to move on its own, and a "poltergeist mirror" in which the vision of a little girl has been seen.
Phillip was curious as to whether the public could see these interesting artefacts, Craig said, "we do daily tours, guided tours here, where people can come around, see our artefacts for themselves. What we wanna do is give people a real experience of our museum and these are real artefacts with documented history on them."
The museum, which also includes a small but well-stocked oddities and gift shop, is located at 283 City Road in Fenton. In-depth guided tours of the museum are available seven days a week for walk-ins. Tours cost £5 and last up to 90 minutes.
The museum also offers tarot card readings, meditation classes, and two-hour séance sessions with a reputable medium in the museum's sought-after and very atmospheric séance room. All these nights of spooky entertainment are offered at a very affordable price with discounts available for established paranormal teams.
To book a place on an event or to find out more about visiting the Haunted Museum & Spirit Shop, check out the museum's official Facebook page and keep your eye on Ghost Hunters Of Stoke-On-Trent on Facebook and YouTube for more updates on the museum and its haunted artefacts.
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