Watch: I take you inside haunted and abandoned Newsham Park Hospital ahead of Halloween horror experience

Newsham Park Seamen's Orphanage, which later became Newsham Park Hospital, was built in 1874 and is 150 years old this year. Steeped in folklore, the Victorian Grade II listed building certainly has a chill about it - whether you believe in the paranormal or not.

Narrow passages lead into shadowy basements, and staircases descend into darkness, where dreary spaces link to the past, and a chill lingers in each compressed space. Wheelchairs, trolleys and machinery from decades ago are strewn around, whilst echoes linger throughout the eerie building.

Newsham Scream Park is back with four new scare experiences which will wind through the building's claustrophobic corridors and dilapidated dormitories. This Halloween season, previously hidden parts of the building will be used for the first time.

“The building itself is intrinsically Spooky. Just being here without a scare attraction is scary enough,” says Local historian Richard MacDonald. “We have just spent an hour walking around the building and there have been plenty of places where the temperature has dropped, things and shadows have been seen in the corner, noises have been heard echoing around the halls. It’s a very atmospheric place.”

AtmosFEAR! are one of Europe's biggest scare attraction companies and have designed each blood-curdling experience. Further new additions for 2024 include the Horror Selfie Museum, new street entertainment, food court, stage acts and live music, plus tarot readers, mystics, fortune tellers and more.

It was built to look after the children of sailors who were lost at sea. During that time, sea travel was very dangerous, and many families, especially in Liverpool, a big seafaring port, relied on the money bought in by the husbands who worked at sea.

As sailors didn't get paid until they reached port if they were lost at sea, it left families destitute - they didn't have enough money to look after their children, so a place like this was built in order to look after them.

This was the first one in Liverpool and was paid for by the wealthy merchants of the city. A wealthy man by the name of James Beasley said, "I'll put £500 in, and if other people put £500, then we'll set up an orphanage", and that's what they did. It was used as an orphanage from 1874 until 1949.

Newsham Park Hospital opened its doors in 1954. In 1992, with the closure of Rainhill Lunatic Asylum, its patients were moved to the hospital.

It remained a mental health hospital until 1997, when it was shut down. The building has been derelict ever since. The records of the people who stayed here were locked for 100 years, so we won't know about any of the patients here at the hospital for another 70-odd years.