Steve Holloway

Many of them were abandoned by their owners, simply because they could no longer afford to continue to run them.

Slowly but surely, they would suffer from neglect, vandalism, and become dilapidated and unsafe.

But others would be given new leases of life.

Large hotel chains began buying up these properties and converting them into spas, luxury restaurants and hotels, where the paying public could get a glimpse of life in an amazing historical house.

But renovating these homes to enable them to become places of leisure, luxury and excess doesn't take away their history.

Nothing can do that, and in many cases, their history still lives on.

in the form of the paranormal and supernatural.

Nestled in the Bedfordshire countryside is one such house.

Flitwick Manor was built in 1632 by Edward Blofield, who imagined a grand house in the Georgian style.

He only managed to enjoy the splendour of his home for around 30 years when he passed away, leaving it to his wife Jane.

The manor changed hands a number of times over the next 126 years or so, sometimes by way of inheritance, others by marriage, until it finally found its way into the Brooks family in 1789.

George Brooks was a prominent banker and barrister who was based in London, and even though he'd married Anne Fisher, who was the owner of Lytic Manor at the time, he had no real appetite for country life and continued to live in the capital.

so it was decided to let the manor out to tenants until 1816.

By this time, a number of significant changes had been made to the house by its long-standing tenant Robert Trevor.

Brooks and Trevor agreed to split the costs of the renovations, but it wouldn't be long until Flitwick would have a member of the Brooks family living in it and passing it on through the generations.

George's son John Thomas Brooks was gifted the manor when he married in 1816, and more improvements were to come.

As well as the house, the grounds saw huge amounts of landscaping, transforming the land around the manor into a truly beautiful environment.

John thoroughly enjoyed the gardens and kept diaries describing the improvements, as well as the maturing of its stunning landscape.

But the family also experienced tragedy, when in 1848 John's only daughter, Mary Ann Brooks, died unexpectedly at only 26 years old.

The house continued to pass down through the family until in 1934 Catherine Mary Frances Brooks passed away aged 81.