Discover the haunting legend of Crazy Mary, the ghostly figure said to roam the cliffs of Pakefield in search of her lost sailor
On the low cliffs south of Lowestoft once stood the twin lighthouses of Pakefield.
Long decommissioned and almost forgotten, their memory lingers in local folklore – bound to the tragic figure of a woman known as Crazy Mary.
They say her ghost still wrings her hands on stormy nights, waiting for a husband who never came home from the sea.
History of Pakefield Lighthouse
The first lighthouses at Pakefield were built in the 1830s, guiding ships along the Suffolk coast.
For decades, the pair of lights warned sailors of sandbanks and reefs.
By the early 20th century, they had fallen out of use and were eventually demolished, leaving only fragments of their foundations behind.
Yet the cliffs of Pakefield are not just remembered for maritime history.
They are haunted by a tale of love, loss, and madness that gave one gully its chilling name: Crazy Mary’s Hole.
The Haunting of Crazy Mary
According to local lore, Mary was a fisherman’s wife whose husband was lost at sea.
Night after night, she paced the clifftops near the lighthouse, staring out over the waves, waiting for his ship to return.
When it became clear he would never come home, her grief grew unbearable.
Some say she died of a broken heart, others that she threw herself into the sea.
Soon afterwards, villagers began to speak of a woman in old-fashioned dress appearing by the gully.
She wrung her hands, sobbed, and called out into the wind – only to vanish as suddenly as she came.
In 1981, a worker at a nearby holiday camp reported seeing exactly that: a forlorn female figure by the disused lighthouse site, wringing her hands in despair before dissolving into thin air.
It was enough to breathe new life into the legend of Crazy Mary for a new generation.
Visiting Pakefield’s Haunted Cliffs
Though the lighthouses are long gone, you can still walk the clifftops at Pakefield and look out across the sea where Mary once searched for her husband.
The gully known as Crazy Mary’s Hole is still marked on local maps, a reminder of her story.
By day, the views are beautiful.
But at dusk, when the wind picks up and the waves crash below, the place takes on a melancholy air.
Many locals still say they have felt a presence nearby, or heard cries on the wind that are not from any living soul.
The story of Crazy Mary is one of grief frozen in time.
Like many coastal ghosts, she embodies the sorrow of those left behind by shipwrecks and storms.
Pakefield’s lost lighthouses may have crumbled, but her legend endures – still warning of the sea’s power to take and never return.
So if you walk the cliffs at Pakefield and feel a sudden sadness, or hear a voice calling from the waves, you may have crossed paths with Mary – still searching for her lost sailor.
