Haunted Houses: How the Victorian Home Inspired Classic Ghost Stories

Victorian Houses. By day, they are the “painted ladies” of postcard row in San Francisco during the opening of Full House. By night, they are the sinister house silhouetted on the hill overlooking the Bates Motel. How did a form of architecture so ornate and family-oriented become such a perfect backdrop for legendary creepy settings and a hub of spirit activity? Below is the history behind how the Victorian home inspired classic ghost stories.

A brief history of the Victorian era

Named after Queen Victoria, the Victorian Era encompasses her majesty’s reign from 1837-1901. It was during this time that building materials became more affordable and easier to transport. This led to a housing boom in the 1850’s which gave birth to the Victorian house.

Victorian homes served as single-family dwellings for the expanding middle class and their staff. They also housed factory workers, lining narrow streets with homes that could accommodate several boarders in one building. These homes were easy to build thanks to the budding Industrial Revolution, resulting in the construction of millions of Victorian homes over several decades.

Victorian architecture

This style of architecture made its way to the US, New Zealand, and Australia. Over the next 60 years, each region adopted its own take on the home.

Victorians are made of brick, stone, or wood, depending on available materials. They’re at least two stories tall but sometimes three. This made for the perfect space to accommodate servants in the attic. Already, they contributed to the idea of unseen figures cohabitating in the space above your bedroom.

Exterior features

The most notable exterior features of Victorian homes include:

• steep roofs
• large front porches which could include carved shapes and spindles
• large windows of varying sizes between floors (including bay windows and stained glass)
• towers (round structures attached from the house from the ground up)
• turrets (those curved towers that are built into the tops of the home) with round or cone-shaped tops
• dormers (a window that sticks up from the roof with its own little roof on top)
• carved gables
• painted iron railings

Because of their elaborate exterior options, these homes all have their own unique shape and size. They can be basic and functional or intricate and overwhelming. Irregular shapes are commonplace. So, the homes often look different from every angle. And the more elaborate, the better, inside and out.

Interior features

Inside, Victorian homes tend to include:

• large rooms
• intricate, dark wood staircases
• double doors
• high ceilings
• large fireplaces
• a library space or nook
• second-floor balconies
• ornamental decorations
• fancy furniture
• heavy drapes on the windows
• hardwood floors with oriental rugs
• tiled hallways

The inside of these homes were dark and full of Queen Victoria and detailed carvings that created dark corners and could cast strange shadows. Their size also provide plenty of room for ghostly investigations through its maze of rooms and hallways that can trap the living inside.

Funeral sites

Queen Victoria herself was known for dressing in black decades after the death of her husband. Her behavior set a morbid tone for the era.

In those days, when a family member passed away, they were laid out in the house. Some homes even had specific rooms reserved for paying respects to the dead.

Homeowners also decorated with funeral images. Urns and talismans used to ward off evil, such as Medusa heads, were often displayed on mantles and shelves.

Victorian seances

This Victorian obsession with death inspired the living to attempt to communicate with the dead. Scientific advancements collided with traditional religious values. This curious exploration of faith gave way to spiritualism, mesmerism, mediums, and paranormal belief.

Traditional Christian beliefs warned against communing with the dead. Doing so could open you up to dark forces. But if you could now communicate with your neighbor down the street using wires and a telephone, why couldn’t you find ways to speak to your loved ones from beyond the grave?

Mediums were popular in the UK, and the fad spread to the United States. These mediums visited homes during parties and created elaborate illusions featuring levitation, table tipping, and clairvoyance.

The Fox sisters living in New York in the 1840’s claimed to be communicating with the ghost of a man who had been murdered in their house. As a result, they made a career out of giving seances where they would create sounds claiming to be spiritual activity.

Taking things one step further, materialization soon transpired. Mediums would dress up like ghosts, create contraptions that would move objects through the air, and display glow-in-the-dark effects. Many were exposed or later admitted to their trickery, but it still proved a popular source of entertainment.

From religion to science to literature

Spiritualism was tied into science with the Society for Psychical Research which formed in 1882 to discover if there was some merit to these paranormal claims. They studied mesmerists who put people into a trance to help them transfer their healthy energy into the body of a sick patient and rid them of their illnesses.

They also explored the science behind mediums. Women were thought to have a more sensitive nervous system.  So, they were more often spiritually gifted.

The comfort of confirming that we not only live on but can still look in on our earthly habitats and those we left behind appealed to many who disliked the paradise versus inferno version of the afterlife depicted in the Bible or who turned to science for a better understanding of our existence and energies. Spiritualism straddled both sides of this coin.

Many famous writers of the time were noted spiritualists. Charles Dickens was known to perform mesmerists on his friends and family (see my post: 10 Quirky Authors in History). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle converted to spiritualism. Female writers such as Catherine Crowe, Margaret Oliphant, and Edith Wharton utilized their “female sensitivities” to the spirit world to create fictional ghost stories based on these theories. As a result, we end up with A Christmas Carol, The Canterville Ghost, The Body Snatcher, and countless others written by authors who were influenced by this movement.

Then there was W.T. Stead, a journalist who published Borderland, a quarterly spiritualist magazine. Stead believed himself to be telepathic as well as a medium and could utilize new technology to help amplify these abilities. He boarded the RMS Titanic in 1912 and was killed in the famous sinking. Spiritualists claimed to have received news of the sinking from Stead’s ghost long before the news broke worldwide.

Deterioration

After the Victorian era ended, homeowners struggled to maintain these intricate homes, and they began to fall apart. The bright paint or bricks faded. Wood began to rot. Windows broke, and their glass became dingy.

Inside, the rooms full of old furniture showed signs of wear and tear. Trinkets collected dust and cobwebs. Some rooms were never updated with more modern electrical systems and plumbing that became commonplace as the era progressed and the Edwardian era took over a more simple and modern architectural style.

As a result, these homes became the creepy house in the neighborhood, the one children would be afraid to walk past, often inhabited by elderly people from another time who didn’t leave the house much or associate with the neighbors. Every suburban town has one or more, and given its paranormal history, it has become synonymous with ghost stories.

Restoring Victorian homes

Our modern obsession with restoration and preservation has led to the renovation of old Victorian homes beginning in the mid-1960’s. New paint jobs, updated electrical work and plumbing, along with the usual home repairs and updates have freshened up our old haunted houses into picturesque homes that you’d find in a Christmas village on your mantel.

These restorations can up the values of these homes into the multi-million dollar ranges. But just because they look new and inviting, their ghostly histories are as rich as ever.

Clearing the air with sage

On top of outwardly restoring these old buildings, restoring the energy of old homes is also a common practice, especially for new homeowners. One paranormal practice that actually is said to have some scientific merit is burning sage to cleanse a house.

Every society in every era of human history has burned sage for cleansing purposes. The practice is just as popular as ever. When burned, sage releases negative ions that can put people in a good mood.  And good, high-quality sage has been known to clear up to 94 percent of airborne bacteria.

An interesting article in Vogue involved the practice of burning sage in the home. It involves tips and tricks from energy practitioner, Colleen McCann. With science backing up what seems like a new age practice, it seems that not all medicine comes in the form of a pill or injection.

Haunted houses

While most of the history behind haunted Victorian homes can be explained by hoaxes, pseudoscience, economic changes, and campfire stories, the structure, usage, and folklore behind them still makes them the perfect setting for spiritual activity, real or imagined. Restored Victorian homes now accommodate haunted ghost tours.  They have been featured in paranormal ghost shows. And they are still the places that children dare each other to run up to and ring the doorbell on Halloween night.

Some are modern day castles while others are homey, picturesque dwellings that modern architecture just doesn’t replicate anymore. Even if they don’t give off a ghostly vibe, they are the ghost of an era that showed off the capabilities of humankind at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, blending science and spirituality which opened us up to an array of possibilities and theories about why we are here and what we can accomplish while we are here. Humans leave such an impact on the spaces that they make their own and the things that they do within those spaces. It’s hard to believe that they don’t stick around to relish it in the afterlife.

What are some of your favorite ghost stories or famous haunted houses? Leave your answers in the comments below!

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