The Ghosts of Crosbie Towers

There is a large Italianate-style villa down the seaside in my town of Troon, Scotland. It originally belonged to a whisky merchant and was then a care home and then property of the Church of Scotland. Its name is Crosbie Towers, "Crosbie" meaning dwelling by the cross ("cros" + "bie", "by"), but there's nothing Godly about this place. A couple of local newspapers reported on what we experienced there and the house can be researched online.

In May 2012 some friends and I ventured in during late evening when the house was still abandoned. At the back one of the wooden boards could be shifted, revealing an entrance that was once a door. It was a dusty, narrow passageway which led into the main ground floor lobby of the house, with rooms coming off on all sides. A sign read "Warning, CCTV" but we knew it was just a ploy and went on. We were pensive after going in the back door; the interior of the house was dark. We milled around a while, joking or talking, egging each other on to go in beyond the passageway. I was at the back, but I still heard that incredibly loud, unforgettable bang from upstairs as we entered the main part of the ground floor for the first time. It sounded like it came from the top of the staircase just as one of us approached the bottom. I can almost hear it today. Needless to say, we rushed out.

The next time, we were at the back entrance again and I just had this indescribable feeling that something was going to happen. Then I heard, or thought I heard, a piercing female cry. I ran out into the back yard, convinced the cry was real. To my dismay, nobody else heard anything. Maybe it was just fear and it was inside my head, perhaps due to an overactive imagination, but it sounded so real. Maybe it just shows how powerful a thing the mind is.

Eventually we did muster up enough courage to go in again, exploring the whole of the ground floor. It was pretty ruined and littered with debris but the old carpets were still in place. It smelled musty, like a library. There was a broken-down elevator, side passageways and, to our horror, a dentist's chair. It looked like a torture chamber. Above the second floor there was also a spiral staircase leading to the tower. We never made it up there; we were too scared. We joked what our feelings would be if we reached the tower only to hear unexplained noises down below. Would we have the courage to go back down? That was a terrifying thought.

A year later as we were walking along the seafront road that passes Crosbie Towers, there were noises coming from the house like taps on a window or wall. This was a calm, Spring evening; it wasn't the wind. We turned and looked at each other, then when we turned back to the house the taps resumed, almost like it was trying to get our attention. We repeated the process and the same thing happened. That was creepy.

The building was renovated around 2015 and is now a block of apartments. I have no idea who now lives there, but God help them. What I experienced there will always be my reference point in talk of the paranormal. Photos and stories from other people can only take you so far, but nobody can take away your own experiences. You are master of that and know what is true.