Andrew Lloyd Webber called in priest over troublesome poltergeist

He is probably best known for his hit musical The Phantom of the Opera, but Andrew Lloyd Webber has disclosed that, in real life, he shared his home with the poltergeist of Eaton Square.

The composer has told The Telegraph that a mischievous spirit took up residence in his home in Belgravia, central London, where it would delight in making piles of paper that he would find in unexpected places. He eventually called on the services of a priest to persuade it to leave the 19th-century property.

Lord Lloyd Webber mentioned the poltergeist when asked by The Telegraph whether any of the theatres he owns are haunted.

He said he had never seen a ghost, but added: “I did have a house in Eaton Square which had a poltergeist.

“It would do things like take theatre scripts and put them in a neat pile in some obscure room. In the end we had to get a priest to come and bless it, and it left.”

‘Felt a presence on the stage’

If Lord Lloyd Webber’s house was indeed visited by a poltergeist, he appears to have been lucky in avoiding the more malevolent behaviour often attributed to them.

The name translates as “noisy spirit”, and legend has it that they can throw objects across rooms, bite people and even start fires.

Families living in Borley Rectory, Essex, known as Britain’s most haunted house until it was demolished in 1944, reported stones and bottles being thrown by a poltergeist, while in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, a poltergeist was said to have stabbed a woman in the back in 1879.

Although Lord Lloyd Webber has never seen a ghost, many other people working in theatres claim that they have, including Sir Patrick Stewart, who said he saw a figure when he was onstage with Sir Ian McKellen during their 2009 performance of Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket Theatre, central London.

Sir Cameron Mackintosh, who has worked with Lord Lloyd Webber on some of his biggest hits, told The Telegraph that on the opening night of Miss Saigon in 1989 he felt a presence on the stage before the show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, which the theatre manager attributed to the theatre’s resident spook, the Man in Grey.

Famous former residents

Three years earlier, The Phantom of the Opera opened at His Majesty’s Theatre, going on to become the West End’s second longest-running musical. The phantom of the title is not a ghost, but a composer with a disfigured face who hides himself from society beneath the Paris Opera House.

If Lord Lloyd Webber had encountered a ghost in his house, there are plenty of famous former residents of Eaton Square it could have been.

Neville Chamberlain, the former prime minister, lived at No 37, and his foreign secretary Lord Halifax lived at No 86. The actress Vivien Leigh lived a few doors down at No 54, while the actor Rex Harrison lived at No 75.

Another former prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, once lived at No 93, while Diana Mitford, the socialite who married Sir Oswald Mosley, was at No 2.