The Curse on Storrs Hall

This photograph of the Temple on the end of a quay at Storrs Hall, has one foot in this world and one in another. It is a place which carries an ancient curse. In 1804 the owner of Storrs Hall was John Bolton, born in Ulverston in 1756. John Bolton made a fortune as a Liverpool slave trader in the West Indies. It has also been alleged that slaves were traded down Windermere and chained in the basement of the hall before being sold on.

John Bolton bought Storrs Hall with proceeds from the slave trade and used the residence to entertain in style, holding regattas on the lake. But he was pursued across time and distance by the vengeful spirit of a slave girl lover he had murdered at the very time he was leaving the West Indies for England. One day back at Storrs Hall, as he walked down the quayside toward the temple a pair of vengeful hands belonging to the slave girl emerged from the water and he knew he could never go on the lake again.
"So widely was this curse believed in Bowness that when the extensive Storrs Hall Estate came up for sale late in the last century, the hotel and its grounds were explicitly excluded from the purchase."

(Peter Nock - Tales and Legends of Windermere)