13 Haunted House British TV Shows to Watch With the Lights On
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Last Updated on September 13, 2026 by Stefanie Hutson
There's a particular sort of British ghost story that only works in a big, old, spooky house – and the people of the British Isles do those stories better than almost anyone. Below, we take a look at some of the best British TV shows built around one haunted property, ranging from prestige dramas to children's serials that quietly traumatized a generation or two of ten-year-olds.
Not all of these are easy to find. While some are available on mainstream streaming services, others are only available on imported DVDs (for which you'll need a region-free DVD player) or occasionally, “gray” copies found on sites like YouTube because the rights holder hasn't really done anything with them.
The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012)
Exhausted mum Eve Caleigh falls asleep on a park bench and wakes to find her five-year-old son gone. Eleven months later, with no trace of him found, the family leaves London for a rented house in the village of Hollow Bay. In 1943, Crickley Hall was a home for orphans evacuated during the Blitz, run by Augustus Cribben and his sister Magda, and the 1943 and present-day stories run alongside each other across three episodes.
Stars Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster, Gentleman Jack), Tom Ellis (Miranda, Lucifer), Douglas Henshall (Shetland, Primeval) as Cribben, and David Warner (The Omen, Titanic). Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon) and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) both appear in early roles. Joe Ahearne adapted the James Herbert novel for screen. Watch it HERE
Marchlands (2011)
Three families live in the same Yorkshire farmhouse in 1968, 1987, and 2010, and all three stories connect to the drowning of eight-year-old Alice Bowen. In 1968 her mother Ruth refuses to accept it was an accident. In 1987 a new family's daughter has an imaginary friend called Alice. In 2010 a pregnant woman strips the wallpaper and finds Alice's photograph underneath.
Five episodes, adapted from an unaired American pilot called The Oaks. Stars Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) as Ruth in 1968, Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) as the same woman in 2010, Alex Kingston (ER, Doctor Who), Dean Andrews (Life on Mars), Shelley Conn (Bridgerton), and Denis Lawson (Bleak House). Available on DVD HERE
Lightfields (2013)
This is the follow-up to Marchlands, using the same three-timeline structure on a Suffolk coast farm. In 1944, London evacuee Eve arrives at Lightfields and becomes friends with the farmer's daughter Lucy. Both girls take an interest in an American airman stationed nearby, and shortly afterwards Lucy dies in a fire in the hay barn. The 1975 and 2012 stories follow people who were children at the time and remember more than they've admitted.
Five episodes. Stars Dakota Blue Richards (The Golden Compass, Endeavour), Jill Halfpenny (EastEnders, The Drowning), Sam Hazeldine (Peaky Blinders), Lucy Cohu (Torchwood), Karla Crome (Misfits), Kris Marshall (Death in Paradise, Love Actually), Sophie Thompson (EastEnders), and Michael Byrne (Coronation Street). It's available on DVD HERE
The Enfield Haunting (2015) / The Enfield Poltergeist (2023)
Between 1977 and 1979, a council house at 284 Green Street in Enfield was the site of the best-documented poltergeist case in British history. Peggy Hodgson and her four children reported furniture moving on its own, and eleven-year-old Janet began speaking in a voice that wasn't hers. Two productions cover it, and they work well watched in order.
The Enfield Haunting is a three-part drama based on Guy Lyon Playfair's book This House Is Haunted. Timothy Spall (Harry Potter, Mr. Turner) plays Maurice Grosse, the Society for Psychical Research investigator who took the case a year after his own daughter died. Matthew Macfadyen (Succession, Pride & Prejudice) plays Playfair, Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply) plays Grosse's wife Betty, and Eleanor Worthington-Cox plays Janet. Directed by Kristoffer Nyholm of The Killing.
The Enfield Poltergeist is a four-part Apple TV+ documentary built from the 250-plus hours of audio Grosse recorded in the house. The production reconstructed the interior as a set and had actors perform to the original tapes, intercut with present-day interviews with Janet, her sister Margaret, and others involved. Directed by Jerry Rothwell.
The Enfield Haunting: Stream it HERE | The Enfield Poltergeist: Stream it HERE
The Living and the Dead (2016)
Somerset, 1894. Nathan Appleby inherits Shepzoy House and its farm after his mother's death, and brings his wife Charlotte from London to run it. He's a psychologist by training, and when a local girl is brought to him apparently possessed, he treats it as a medical case. Further cases follow, and his explanations get harder to sustain.
Six episodes, created by Ashley Pharoah, co-creator of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Stars Colin Morgan (Merlin, Humans) and Charlotte Spencer (Sanditon), with Nicholas Woodeson (Rome) as the local vicar. Sadly, it ended on a cliffhanger and was not renewed. Stream it HERE
Remember Me (2014)
Tom Parfitt, in his eighties, stages a fall at his Yorkshire home so social services will move him into residential care. Minutes after he arrives, the social worker who delivered him goes out of a sealed fourth-floor window, with only the two of them in the room. Teenage care assistant Hannah Ward doesn't accept the verdict of accidental death, and a local detective eventually joins her. The case connects to a woman named Isha and to the folk song Scarborough Fair.
Three episodes, written by Gwyneth Hughes, filmed in Scarborough and Huddersfield. Michael Palin (Monty Python) took the lead in his first major television drama role in around twenty years. Also stars Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) before she was well known, Mark Addy (Game of Thrones, The Full Monty), Sheila Hancock, and Julia Sawalha (Absolutely Fabulous). Stream it HERE
Bedlam (2011 – 2012)
Bedlam Heights is a former asylum redeveloped into luxury flats. Jed Harper sees ghosts and the manner of their deaths, and he arrives after receiving anonymous texts warning him that his cousin Kate, who is managing the building, is in danger. Each episode digs into a different part of the asylum's history.
Series one is six episodes and stars Theo James (The White Lotus, Divergent), Charlotte Salt (Casualty), Will Young, Ashley Madekwe (Revenge), and Hugo Speer (The Full Monty). Series two, also six episodes, replaced nearly the whole cast, bringing in Lacey Turner (EastEnders), Jack Roth, and Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians). It works better treated as two entirely separate things than as one story. Stream it HERE
The Haunting of Radcliffe House (2014)
Released in the US as Altar. Meg Hamilton is hired to restore a derelict mansion on the North York Moors and moves her family up from London for the job – her husband Alec, a sculptor, and their two children. They open up a bricked-up room, find a Rosicrucian mosaic set into the floor, and learn that a previous owner killed his wife there. Alec's behaviour changes shortly afterwards.
This one's technically a film, but it got its start on TV, first shown on Channel 5 on Boxing Day. Stars Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, The Crown), Matthew Modine (Stranger Things, Full Metal Jacket), Antonia Clarke (Tommy & Tuppence), and Steve Oram (Sightseers). Reviews at the time were poor, and it's the most conventional horror film on this list, so adjust expectations accordingly. Watch it HERE
Crooked House (2008)
Don't mistake this one for Agatha Christie's Crooked House – it's an easy one to mix up, but they're totally different productions. In this, a teacher digs up an old door knocker in his garden and takes it to a local curator, who identifies it as coming from Geap Manor, a Tudor house recently demolished. The curator then tells him three stories about the place, set in the Georgian period, the 1920s, and the present day, and the final story brings the knocker back into it.
Three half-hour episodes, shown on BBC Four across three consecutive nights before Christmas. Written by Mark Gatiss (Bookish, Sherlock), who also plays the curator, with Lee Ingleby (The A Word, Line of Duty) as the teacher, Philip Jackson (Poirot), Jean Marsh (Upstairs Downstairs), and Derren Brown in a small role. Gatiss went on to revive the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas five years later. Stream it HERE
The Stone Tape (1972)
A research team from an electronics company moves into a Victorian mansion to develop a recording medium that will give them an advantage over their Japanese competitors. They're told the builders refused to finish one room. Inside it, they hear running footsteps and a scream, and computer programmer Jill Greeley sees a young woman fall from a stone staircase. Team leader Peter Brock concludes that the stone is holding a recording and sets about extracting it.
A 90-minute television play written by Nigel Kneale (Quatermass) and broadcast on BBC Two on Christmas Day. Stars Michael Bryant, Jane Asher (Death at a Funeral), Iain Cuthbertson (Budgie), and Michael Bates (Last of the Summer Wine). The “stone tape theory” it invented – that buildings record traumatic events and replay them – has since been adopted as genuine paranormal lore in some circles. Stream it HERE
The Clifton House Mystery (1978)
The Clare family move into an old house in the Clifton area of Bristol. The children break through an upstairs wall into a sealed bedroom and find a skeleton in the four-poster bed. The disturbances that follow connect to the Bristol riots of 1831 and an army officer with a troubled history.
Six half-hour episodes, made by HTV West – the same company behind Children of the Stones – and written by Daniel Farson and Harry Moore. Peter Sallis (Last of the Summer Wine, Wallace & Gromit) appears in the final three episodes as ghost hunter Milton Guest. Sebastian Breaks and Ingrid Hafner play the parents. The ending is less tidy than most children's drama of the period. You can get the DVD HERE
Nobody's House (1976)
The Sinclair family buy Cornerstones, a Victorian house that's stood empty for years, intending to run an antiques business from it. It already has a resident: a fourteen-year-old ghost called Nobody, who has seen off every previous owner and is put out to find that the Sinclair children can see him.
Seven 25-minute episodes from Tyne Tees for ITV. It's a comedy rather than a spooky ghost story, though Nobody's loneliness gets its due by the end. Kevin Moreton plays Nobody, with William Gaunt (The Champions, No Place Like Home) as the father. The DVD is hard to track down, but it can be found via other means with a bit of Googling.
The Witch Farm (2026)
One to watch for. Danny Robins — the man behind the Uncanny podcast and series, The Battersea Poltergeist, and the West End play 2:22 – A Ghost Story — has adapted his own podcast about Heol Fanog, a remote farmhouse in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons.
Set in South Wales in 1989, it follows Bill and Liz Rich and their teenage son, who leave London for the isolation of the farm and get considerably more isolation than they bargained for. Gabrielle Creevy and Michael Socha lead, with Jeremy Swift as medium Eddie Burks. Four hour-long episodes, directed by Stacey Gregg.
Coming to BBC One and BBC iPlayer. No transmission date announced yet, and no US home confirmed — but we'll update when there's news.
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