The Ghosts of Stepps Hotel in Axmouth

Long before Stepps Hotel welcomed golfers and honeymooners, before its halls echoed with polite conversation and clinking cutlery, it was a place built on shadows. Perched above the jagged cliffs of Axmouth, the Georgian structure bore silent witness to centuries of secrets—smugglers’ whispers lost to the tide, betrayals sealed beneath floorboards, and blood that history never recorded. Locals say the sea carved tunnels beneath it, but it was men who filled them with malice. Though the building was polished with time, the ghosts remained, waiting patiently in the walls for someone to listen. And in the autumn of 1955, someone finally did!