Steve Holloway

After removing a section of tiles and brickwork near one of the chimney stacks, they found a small doorway.

What was a doorway doing hidden underneath the bricks and roof tiles?

What was it for?

Who'd put it there?

After opening it up, Jim went inside with a torch and found a small staircase which led down into a room.

This room was quite large, and in one of the walls, a framework still existed for a door, which told Jim that this could have been some type of attic space.

The door had been removed and bricked up, leaving only the frame behind as the only visible indication that something had been there.

From inside the house, there was nothing to suggest that the room even existed.

So why was it there?

This is episode 68 of the Haunted UK podcast, and it's high time that we visited two very haunted properties, Flitwick Manor and Himley Hall.

In the UK, you'll find many manor houses and stately homes scattered all over the place.

Some are in the hands of organisations such as English Heritage or the National Trust, who take care of these beautiful and historic properties, opening them up to the public and giving us the chance to wander around these once powerful and influential homes.

In many cases, these organizations have reached agreements with the families who once owned them, taking on the expense of upkeep and maintenance of such large properties, which the families can no longer afford to do in exchange for the existing family members to still have private living quarters there, enabling them to still call these magnificent houses their homes.

Exploring the houses and the grounds of these properties gives us a window into the world which has long since gone.

Think of Downton Abbey, for instance.

That fascinating upstairs-downstairs lifestyle, which was commonplace in these types of homes, and only really began to wither away after the Second World War.

I've always found these places hugely interesting, not just because of the paranormal or supernatural aspects, but also because of how these homes were run.

A member of the Leslie family, who still owned Castle Leslie in Ireland, said it was always really the servants' house back then.

Leslie's came and went, but the backbone of the house, which were the servants and the other employees, was always there.

Tragically, there aren't always happy endings for these once great homes.