Hinton Ampner

I called in at this beautiful little property whilst travelling for a coffee. I didn’t have enough time to look inside the house but I loved the tranquil gardens.

The house was lovingly rebuilt by its last owner, Ralph Dutton, after a catastrophic fire in 1960.

Hinton Ampner is connected with a number of ghosts. Between 1765–72, Baroness Stawell rented Hinton Ampner to William Henry Ricketts and whilst he was away for several years on business in Jamaica, his wife Mary experienced a series of events or hauntings in the house. She wrote to her husband that she ‘frequently heard noises in the night, as of people shutting,

A version of these events, based on Mary’s letters and written accounts, was published as ‘A Hampshire ghost story’ by The Gentleman's Magazine in 1872 and Hinton Ampner became known as one of most haunted houses in Georgian England. Henry James’s gothic novel ‘The Turn of the Screw’ (1898) is thought to have been partly inspired by the story.