Local historian Paul Lanagan of the Houghton-le-Spring Heritage Society writes that Houghton Hall, on Hall Lane just east of the town centre, was built around 1575 and that he has heard many firsthand accounts of a White Lady in the former YMCA building. It is possible she is Elizabeth Elliot, the 20 year old daughter of Sir George Elliot MP, who died on 29 September 1861 and was buried four days later in a vault at Hillside Cemetery. Many locals believe she died when her dress caught fire as she dressed for a party. Her bones were scattered when the Elliot vault was desecrated in 1957.
The YMCA used the hall from 1971. Andrew Acton recalled playing table tennis on the top floor around 1983 when the lights dimmed, the ball seemed to stop above the net and a glow came from it. A former YMCA chairman, Rowland Storey, suggested the White Lady is simply moving light from vehicle headlights on the A690 near Rainton, but Acton was not convinced. Tracy Smith described the boardroom as haunted, recalling a small boy asking her who the man was when nobody else was in the room.
The second ghost is Captain Robert Hutton, a noted puritan who died on 9 August 1680 and did not want a church burial, so he was buried in the grounds with his favourite horse and dog. His remains were later moved to St Michael's churchyard. A 1960s Sunderland Echo piece quoted Ted Martin, a retired colliery manager, saying that when his family lived at the hall in 1896 the captain haunted a bedchamber that the terrified family kept locked. Since 2001 a family has lived in the hall and says there is a presence, but a peaceful one.
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