Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall Walkthrough

Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall is the twenty-eighth game in the series and the one that comes closest to a real ghost story. Savannah Woodham, back from Shadow at the Water’s Edge, sends Nancy to Blackrock Island, where the bride-to-be Jessalyn Thornton vanished during a bachelorette party in the family’s decaying plantation house, and where Charlotte Thornton, who burned to death years ago, still seems to be walking. This walkthrough follows the Amateur Sleuth route, lists the Master Sleuth variants at the end, and covers all three endings and every achievement.

How the game plays

There is no tutorial. Left click does everything, right click rotates pieces in puzzles. The cursor is a magnifier; it becomes a hand for items, arrows for movement, curved arrows for rotation, a speech bubble for talk. Cutscenes cannot be skipped. The inventory runs along the bottom, Nancy’s phone at the left end and the task list at the right; there is no item combining, items apply themselves when used on the right spot. Saves live in Documents\Ghost of Thornton Hall.

Achievements (names vary by localisation, so described here): drink seven cups of tea; use the EVP reader fifteen times; run the cotton gin eleven times; find at least one Easter egg; turn the key in Charlotte’s door five times; click the wine bottles twenty times before solving that puzzle; examine every grave, including the one with Nancy’s name; find all seven phone charms; hear every family story by eavesdropping and talking often; see every ghost manifestation; finish without the in-game hints; save everyone in the fire; answer the closing quiz question correctly.

Day one

Arrival

Answer Savannah’s call. From the pier, walk to the gate and turn left to the stone marker with the letter T: pick up the first phone charm, the Epitaph Hunt sheet (21 items to find) and, right of it, a second charm. Turn around, walk to the house and meet Colton, the groom, who hands you Jessalyn’s dead phone with a broken charger. Talk him out. Two steps towards the white swing, turn, and take the claw hammer by the left column. In through the door.

The parlour

Right from the hall. Clara, Jessalyn’s mother, gives you Addison Hammond’s number (it goes straight into your contacts). Talk everything through, then look around: the briefcase by the table leg cannot be opened with Clara here; the round portrait is Hiriam Thornton; over the fireplace hang Jeb Thornton and Sarah Emma Wickman. From the mantel read the blue book on women spies of the Civil War, noting the paragraph on Belle Boyd, and the second book about the long cold nights on Blackrock, noting that the workers called Sarah “Nanny”. By the door, take the oranges from the fruit bowl and a napkin; then pour a cup of tea, add lemon and sugar, and drink. Do that seven times for the tea achievement (a trophy shows briefly over the menu icon).

Hall and workshop

In the hall note Beauregard Thornton’s portrait. Call everyone in your phone: Addison, Savannah (a parcel is coming), and Ned via Bess, who explains how to build a charger. Door on the left, the workshop: paint thinner from the crate, the Electronics pamphlet on the bench (a homemade battery), claw hammer on the left wall for nails, a rolled canvas from the bench end. Right: net by the window; stand the projector upright on the table; copper coins from the jar; metal trowel from the post. Back at the bench: oranges down, nails into them, coins into them, click the jar on the left for the clip leads. The phone charges. By the door, a puzzle you cannot solve yet and a warning sign; push the door and hear something; note the cotton gin. As you leave, a shadow crosses the doorway.

Second floor

Up the stairs. Fit the canvas into the empty frame on the right: Franklin Thornton. Take the bag of raw cotton from the table and the third charm from the left wall. From the sofa read the book on the Thorntons of Blackrock: Roger had a nickname, and Marianna asked to be called Karenina. Note Jackson Thornton over the sofa and Marianna in the left corridor. The next painting has a stain: napkin plus thinner, rub the hotspot four times, and a woman at the graves appears. The door beyond is locked. Downstairs, talk to Clara again (she will not say who is in her portrait), then out to Colton on the porch and ask how he met Jessalyn.

The family cemetery

Follow the sign left of the gate. Clara’s eccentric cousin Wade waits at the entrance with an EVP recorder; ask to hear his recordings and question him about everything (save first: he explains each grave only once). Read every epitaph: Clara’s mother; the unmarked grave of the Grey Lady, the spy whose service earned the family the island; the still-living Harper’s grave; Charlotte; old Beauregard; Wade’s mother Virginia Thornton; his father Luther Atchison; walk round the statue and read its plaque; Roger and Marie Thornton, parents of Charlotte and Harper. The crypt is locked, and the Angel of Death seems to move its hand. Fountain: fourth charm on the rim; part the nettles left of it and clear two overgrown stones, one blank and one reading “Fifty-four souls”. Wade mentions a parcel from Savannah.

The parcel and the phone password

Second floor, bay window table: open the parcel for the EVP reader and Savannah’s book with her letter inside. In the left corridor a woman in red walks towards you and fades. Talk to Clara twice (do not trust Wade). Workshop: call Jess and Savannah, take the charged phone; it needs a password. Addison says the epitaphs are the clue. Open the Epitaph Hunt sheet: each entry is a name and two numbers, word and letter. Nanny is Sarah from the fireplace book, Grandmother is Rosalie, Clara’s mother; Ghost is Charlotte; Roger’s nickname; HT is Harper Thornton; VT Virginia Thornton; Karenina is Marianna; the factory victims are the Fifty-four souls stone; LA is Luther Atchison. Count the given word on each stone and take the given letter. On Amateur the nine letters spell VWRMYFITS (voice, always, Charlotte, Drummonds, dearly, forgotten, fifty, goes are among the source words). If your sheet differs, count again from the stones: the sheet is the authority.

In the phone, open the Journal and play every audio file; three matter: Addison drops something between the floorboards; Jessalyn wants the ruins where Charlotte died; “the snake lies in the centre on two handles” and a message on a window in a place only for the dead. Read all the text messages, put the phone down. EVP reader on the locked cellar door: red zone.

The floorboard note

Parlour: a fog rolls in and Clara is gone. The differently coloured board under the left window lifts once the spider leaves. The coded note has two parts: trace one of the four colour words without crossing your own path, which only yellow allows; the sheet flips, and the yellow squares spell Ethel’s grave. Colton on the porch tells how Clara moved in with her cousin’s family after her mother died. Cemetery: Wade recites the childhood rhyme for calling the ghost; the EVP reader reacts only at Charlotte’s grave (orange). In the house, singing from above; the note on the bay window table says the summoning needs a blindfold, the rhyme, and the place where spirits gather: the cellar door. Take a second napkin from the tea tray, go to the workshop door, use the napkin, pick the first rhyme (“Fire so red, night so dark, dear sweet Charlotte please come back”), answer the next question however you like.

Harper

In the cellar Harper Thornton removes the blindfold: alive, hiding, and she makes you promise not to tell. Take her note: look closely at the portraits to find her hideout. A scythe falls as you leave. Napkin with thinner on the hotspots: Beauregard in the hall; Franklin’s heart; Jackson’s chest over the sofa; Marianna’s right shoulder; Jeb and Sarah over the parlour fireplace; Hiriam’s left shoulder. The note fills with scrambled words; drag the letters into place to unscramble the hint about the door: balance the scales.

Cotton gin and the cellar door

Workshop, the gin: the brush discs must sit tight on the shaft, cylinders on the motor fitting the holes; pick the disc that fits and the shaft turns for the next. Order 5, 2, 1, 6, 4, 3, 7. Cotton in the top tray, pull the lever, take the seeds from the bottom tray. Pull the lever eleven times for the achievement. The scales puzzle right of the door: balance them with seeds. One working Amateur solution: two seeds each on pans 4 and 6, four on pan 1 (pan numbering may read differently in your copy: the principle is equal torque on both arms). The shield lifts.

The cellar

One step in, save. Take out the EVP reader (red), put it away, and a hotspot appears on the left wall: slide the loose brick, take the first Easter egg (achievement). Ahead, Jessalyn’s blue backpack by the left door: chocolate (eaten), the wedding checklist with the menu discussion, the Thornton family tree in the bottom left corner, and a half key in the right corner. Through the door is Harper’s hideout: talk everything through. A barrel-shaped charm among the wine casks; a green untitled book on the shelves with a note mentioning Jackson (the tree shows him as Roger and Marianna’s father, dead 1988); coloured tiles on the low right wine rack. The tunnel right of the door ends at a door with a puzzle missing a piece.

Workshop bench: the green scales; put the egg on the right pan and a tractor charm drops. Take the egg back. Parlour: tell Clara about Harper, breaking your word; she and Wade find nothing. Talk again: Charlotte’s locket. Colton: Harper was in a psychiatric clinic. Wade gives the note Charlotte wrote before she died. Second floor: Charlotte’s door stands ajar, snap a photo with the phone camera (optional). Try the half key: it fits but is broken; turn it four more times for the achievement. Call everyone. New note on the bay table. Cellar, wine rack: click the bottles twenty times first for the achievement, then use the note: the letter grid matches the bottle niches. On Amateur the order spells BILEO: the third letter goes in the middle, one letter precedes another, one sits between two others; work it out from the clues on your note and click in that order. A door opens.

Behind the rack

Forward to the barred window and overhear Colton on the phone with someone called Lexi. Pick up Jessalyn’s pink camera and flick through all the photos (this activates several hotspots). The disturbed earth by the window: trowel, dig up a box you cannot open yet. Day one ends.

Day two

Morning

Read the new note on the bay table, call everyone. Downstairs, click the parlour door to overhear Clara, and the front door for Colton and Lexi again. Talk to Colton twice. The column right of the swing is now active: click the drawing and copy it. From the T marker, push aside the bushes and follow the path to the fountain.

The fountain puzzle and the burned house

Wade’s note explains it: a nonogram of paired tiles, same colours never touching, the coloured numbers on the edges giving the count of blue and red in each row and column; click to place a pair, click again to flip it, a third click marks a cross. Solved, the hiding place gives Charlotte’s drawing and a snake plaque. Up the steps of the ruin: Charlotte’s ghost goes down the spiral stair; fish the crypt key out with the net; the EVP reader reads red here. From the round table right of the door take the film reel and look at the photos that survived the fire. Tell Clara the news. Cellar: the lever by the casks (active after the photos) opens a second passage; up the spiral stair, take the charm from the lamp, and the door lets you out by Charlotte’s room. Call Addison and Savannah.

The film and the star

Workshop: reel on the projector. Among the party footage are spliced frames of a wall with a star; Clara bursts in; after apologies, click again to see Charlotte’s ghost on film before the projector dies. Burned house: the ghost again, and Nancy faints. Waking, you must reach the star silhouette high on the wall: build a stable stack from the objects top left (many solutions; the star cursor goes active when it is high enough), click the star twice to tear the paper and sketch it, then click the down arrow immediately before the ceiling comes down. Cemetery: talk to Wade, listen to his recordings; the once-blank stone by the workers’ memorial now reads Nancy Drew (achievement).

The crypt

Unlock it. Harper climbs out of the vent, furious; when she asks whether you want her found, answer “right now, yes” and she goes. Take the dried rose from the vase, lay it at the statue’s feet outside as the flower note says, come back. The stained glass: drag the pieces so like colours touch (they flip automatically); it spells Beauregard. Left wall: a newspaper cutting in the bottom niche, a bird sketch in the middle one. The coffins opposite: the dead-flowers note marks a coffin in the middle row; pull it out, the lid shows a bird like Jessalyn’s photo; the tile is taken automatically and you solve a tangram, rotating pieces with the right button; the lid slides for the coloured number strips. Open that lid five times for the second Easter egg in the skeleton’s eye socket. The snake coffin has two handles and its position was written on the porch column; pull it, lay the snake plaque on it, solve the tangram, take the second half key, which joins the first. The coffin right of it carries a star tile; the star note says its coffin sits above the two-handled one, in the top row; place the tile, tangram, and take the locket from the skeleton’s chest. Outside, the rose has become a flower drawing. Beauregard’s grave near the gate: click the base for a colour sequence, remember it. Ethel’s grave is opposite.

Charlotte’s room

Clara screams: she saw an angry Charlotte. Upstairs, another ghost note on the table. Open Charlotte’s door with the joined key: the same tile puzzle as the fountain, with the strips slotting in automatically; solve it. Inside: clocks on the mantel, a picture, a round box on the chair for three eggs. On the lamp by the dresser, the seventh charm (achievement). The dresser box: a masquerade invitation for the thirtieth of October, and a small key for the buried box. Click the front panel and fit the coloured tiles from the hideout; before solving, take the third Easter egg by pressing the left column top to bottom, the bottom row left to right, the right column bottom to top. Then solve: Beauregard’s colours were violet, dark green, dark blue, light blue; lay a path of those tiles from the top left corner to the top right (not every tile has to be pressed). The panel opens for the clock note. Read the diary on the right about Franklin’s memorial. Eggs into the round box: the side panel turns and shows the masquerade note. Call Savannah. Charlotte’s ghost in the corridor.

The buried box

Cellar: talk to Harper, take the second tunnel up, and do not go in: someone is at Charlotte’s door; look through the crack and see Wade fail to open it, run, and drop something. Back down, a shadow again. First tunnel: unlock the box with the small key. Set Ethel’s death date with the arrow buttons: the tree gives only the year, the headstone gives 1.13.1933, January thirteenth; press left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right. Take the flower tile. Day two ends.

Day three

Jessalyn

Phone chat, the blue curtain stirs (ghost effects are random). Cemetery: EVP on the statue (yellow), read the memorial plaque: Charlotte’s diary says take the first and seventh digits of the founding date, 1 and 8, so 18. EVP at the crypt door (orange; keep measuring for the fifteen-use achievement). Crypt: flower tile on the right coffin, tangram, take the button 6. Cellar: talk to Harper, go to the dead-end door, insert the button and arrange the numbers so every row and column sums to 18. Inside is Jessalyn. Do not press her; say you can help; take her hint note and agree to fetch Charlotte’s necklace from Clara’s briefcase; she knows about Colton and Lexi.

The clocks

Wade’s dropped key lies on the carpet by Charlotte’s door. In her room, note each clock’s starting time, put the key in the lock under the mantel and press the bear’s nose: the clocks run at different speeds and stop after a full circle. Subtract start from finish for each rate (in this run 2:00, 4:00, 1:00, 2:00, 1:00 for one hour), then set each clock to 12:00 minus its rate (10:00, 8:00, 11:00, 10:00, 11:00) and press the lever: all five strike twelve and a secret door opens behind the painting. Your rates may differ; the method is the same.

The briefcase

Work out Jessalyn’s clues before you go, the case is on a timer. Belle Boyd a Confederate spy? Yes: 2 and 5. Charlotte’s masquerade on 31 October? No, the 30th: 1 and 4. Cornelia died in 1924? No, 1971: 6. Fifty-four workers died? Yes: 10. Fried chicken on the wedding menu? No, Colton only suggested it: 14. Did Harper seriously hurt anyone in the fire? No, nobody pressed charges: 13. Sequence 2-5-1-4-6-10-14-13. Through the passage; angry singing drives Clara out; open the door into the parlour, click the briefcase: an LED lock, each segment numbered on your note; light the segments matching your numbers. Take the necklace and leave fast. Back through Charlotte’s room into the passage, slide the bolt and peep: Clara on the phone. Return the long way and look at the fireplace: “Help me” appears. Ask Clara about Harper (historian achievement). Back to the peephole: Charlotte attacks, twice (ghost achievement).

The locket

Cellar: give Jessalyn the necklace, then the locket; she cannot open it. Charlotte’s note says mother, 1867, Wright; the tree says Marianna, Hiriam born 1867, Emeline Wright. Press the petals to spell MARIANNA (first pins drop), HIRIAM, then EMELINE. Jessalyn vanishes into the tunnel with the open locket. Call Savannah. Take her new note from the generator; the tunnel is dark. Generator maze: roll the ball through flaps that open from one side only, so it crosses the whole maze. Row one: 7 right, down, left, 5 down, right, up. Row two: down, left, 2 up, right, down, right, 2 down, 4 left, 4 up, 2 left, 3 up, 2 right. Row three: 2 left, 3 down, 2 right, 4 down, 4 right, 2 up, left, up, left, 3 up, right, up, 3 left, down. Light on. The left tunnel has symbols on the walls and ends under the crypt. Colton hands you a coded note: draw a vertical line through each symbol and it is the prime numbers in order with their mirror images, so the missing one is 6. In the tunnel find the matching symbol under the crypt on the left wall and dig there (a wrong spot summons the ghost) for a wall safe.

Safe part one, a sliding-tile puzzle: 2-5-8-7-4-5-6-3-2-1-4-7-8-9-6-5-8-7-4-5-6-9-8-5. Part two, the locket note gives pins to press, the curls telling you which corner to count from: top row 1, 3, 4, 5 left to right; right column 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 top to bottom; bottom row 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 right to left; left column 1, 3, 4, 5 bottom to top. Take Charlotte’s will, close the safe.

The fire and three endings

Fire. The vent to the crypt is barred; run the tunnel. Harper has hurt her leg and Jessalyn asks for help; two answers. First ending: refuse, watch, then answer the quiz (achievements for a right answer and for a hint-free game). Load “At the fork”. Second: help Harper; a broken cart appears; bolts from the bookshelf behind the girls, handle by the casks, one wheel on the shelf, another on the chair right of Jessalyn; fit them, then refuse to save Clara: quiz and ending two. Third: repair the cart again, agree to save Clara; you are in Charlotte’s room and someone has reset the clocks. Take the old key from the mantel, set every clock to 12, wind, watch the slowest (left) clock complete one hour, press the lever, read the others, and set each to 12 minus its reading (here 11:00, 9:30, 10:30, 10:00, 8:00). Pull the lever for the final cutscene, the quiz, and your awards.

Master Sleuth variants

Phone password: a different set of eight clues from the same stones, giving PRDRYRIW; work each from your sheet (Grandmother, RN for Ruby Newton, Roger’s nickname, VT, the factory victims, Karenina, LA, Ghost). Scales: left pans 1, 3, 6 take 4, 2, 3 seeds; right pans 2, 5, 7 take 2 each. Bottles: a six-letter word derived from the harder clue. Fountain and tangrams are the same, larger. Coloured tiles: five colours from Beauregard’s base. Ethel’s date: March 1933; read the day off her stone in your copy. Hideout grid: top and bottom rows sum to 25, left and right columns to 15. Safe: a longer sliding-tile sequence; solve it as a standard 15-puzzle, or use the skip.