New Brighton, or Perch Rock, Lighthouse was built in 1830 on a sandstone outcrop at the very mouth of the Mersey specifically to guide shipping safely into Liverpool, and it remained in continuous service for over 140 years until it was finally decommissioned in 1973, made redundant by the arrival of modern navigation aids that no longer required its physical light. Local ghost-tour legend attaches to the lighthouse a figure known as the Lighthouse Ghoul, or Maudsley, said to have been a keeper who met a genuinely mysterious and violent end, some versions of the story say he went mad and took his own life, others that he was murdered outright, and whose pale figure, carrying a lantern of his own, is said to emerge from the fog to frighten anyone unwise enough to be out walking the shore alone at night.
No historical record of a keeper actually named Maudsley has ever been found by anyone who has looked into the claim, which strongly suggests the story functions primarily as invented local colour, or perhaps as a deliberately cautionary tale intended to keep people, children especially, well away from the genuinely dangerous tidal rocks and channel after dark, rather than actually recording a real historical death.
It nonetheless remains a genuine fixture of New Brighton ghost walks and the neighbouring Fort Perch Rock's own wider reputation for hauntings, Maudsley's invented tragedy doing real, practical work as a safety warning even without any actual historical death behind it.
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