Britain’s most haunted places

Britain, the haunted island

Tracking down Britain’s most haunted places is a tough mission.  The entire British Isles is a place of myths and legends, of ghosts and gods and spirits, where folk memories go back thousands of years.  Travelling from the east, the first settlers found these islands at the farthest edge of Europe.  To head any further west, across the boundless ocean, would be to possibly reach the Otherworld – unless, as some said, the entrance to the Otherworld was somewhere in Britain itself.  Many beliefs were established long centuries before the Romans arrived and survive to this day, disguised as Christian or modern celebrations.  Beltane, for example, which we call May Day, and Samhain, the Day of the Dead, or All Souls Day – the day after Halloween.  I imagine that nervous Roman invaders, stoked with rumours, viewed the place with some trepidation – a mist-shrouded archipelago, inhabited by giants, strange beasts, lost souls and a powerful religious cult that practised human sacrifice.  To those ignorant of its rich Celtic culture and trade, Britain lay beyond the pale of the known world, across a formidable, treacherous, sea.  The innocent newcomer would encounter seemingly impenetrable forests, ancient trackways and landscapes peppered with enigmatic monuments and memorials to the departed.  Spirits, some benign, some not, proliferated in woodland groves, watercourses and on remote uplands. 

Successive incursions of people and beliefs – Celtic, Roman, Germanic, Nordic, Christian – and more – all believing in some form of afterlife, together with a heavy dose of natural human superstition, multiplied the ghosts and mingled faiths to create a diverse, unique, culture of the supernatural.  As Christianity grew more powerful, many ancient sacred spaces evolved into churches; their power can still be felt.  Others are veiled, or perhaps hidden in plain sight.  Britain’s long, vivid, and often violent, history has added to the mix.  The spirits of the past are all around, whether they reveal themselves to you, or not.

Even in the largely secular, materialistic and digital 21^st century, spectres of one sort or another frequent lonely roadsides, hillsides, churches, cemeteries, abbeys, castles, stately homes, ruins, battlefields and more.  They play out scenes from their lives, give warnings, radiate emotions and are sometimes sensed, rather than seen.  The mind boggles at how many grey ladies, lost children, wronged lovers, spectral dogs, hooded monks and so on there are in haunted Britain.  They are more difficult to spot in the noise of a city – but that does not mean they are not there.  Unlike in the movies, most ghosts are not necessarily malevolent and few have horrific, hideous, features.  Most are just like you and me.

Anyway, if you want to find a ghost, Britain is the perfect place to start.  All you need is a little faith – though a personal paranormal experience helps no end.  According to a survey undertaken in 2017 by BMG Research, 36% of people in the UK believe in ghosts.  Interestingly, the same survey also found that those who voted for the UK Independence Party in the 2015 General Election were more likely to believe in ghosts or spirits than voters of any other political party.  My own jury is out – but I never voted UKIP.

Where do ghosts come from?

Good question.  Are they genuine reminders of things that have happened?  Are they trying to tell us something?  Bring comfort?  Do they appear when no one is there to see them?  How do you recognise a ghost – is that man walking along the road an apparition, the child standing on the edge of the playground a wraith?  What triggers their appearance – is it an anniversary, a response to an emotion?  Is there something about a place, some quality, or a confluence of forces coming together, that create a supernatural phenomenon?  Are they some form of hallucination, perhaps triggered by auto-suggestion?  Many of us have experienced sensations, or perhaps even seen things, for which there is no readily available logical explanation.  Many of us have felt an atmosphere – perhaps when looking round a house to live in – that has felt friendly, or threatening.  I wonder, if a ghost appears on the anniversary of an event that took place before the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian in 1752, does it make an adjustment for the 11 days difference?

We all know what a ghost is, don’t we?  It is the soul of a dead person.  The soul is independent of the material body and leaves at the point of death.  This is the origin of the expression to give up the ghost.  After death, the ghost or spirit goes on to dwell in some form of afterlife world, perhaps with its god.  Or maybe it doesn’t.  Do people believe in ghosts because they believe in the hereafter, or cannot accept there is nothing after life.  Maybe it’s just part of being human to be superstitious and we should accept there are things we do not understand.  Are ghost hunters searching for some kind of truth, merely curious, or people who get a thrill out of being scared?

Samuel Johnson said, on the subject of ghosts that “all argument is against it; but all belief is for it”.

Britain’s most haunted places

The assertion that one place is more haunted than another is a little hard to measure – and prove.  Not only is there considerable choice, but in the absence of empirical study I suggest the conclusions are entirely subjective.  Once upon a time, the most haunted place in Britain, or at least England, was said to be Borley Rectory in Essex.  This had it all: phantom coaches, a nun, a headless man, unruly poltergeists, objects disappearing and reappearing, writing materialising on the wall, bells ringing.  It was a ghost-hunter’s paradise and investigated by Harry Price, well-known psychic researcher and member of The Society for Psychical Research.  It seems the site was haunted long before an ugly Victorian house was constructed for its owner, the Reverend Henry Bull, his wife, fourteen children and their servants.  The phantom – apparently – was the nun, a novice who had fallen in love with a monk.  A friend of the monk arranged for the two lovers to elope in a coach, but the plan was discovered.  The monk and his accomplice were executed; the nun was walled up alive.  Sadly, Borley Rectory burnt to the ground in 1939, although hauntings allegedly continued for many years afterwards.  I believe the spirits are at rest now, though.  Or perhaps they have moved elsewhere.

These days, if you search the Internet for Britain’s most haunted places, the results return variations of ‘the ten most haunted places in Britain’ and reveal a surprising amount of common ground – as well as an awful lot of absurd hyperbole.  The cynic in me can’t help thinking that, firstly, some of the results are driven by commercial objectives and, secondly, how surprising it is that visitors are not rushing from these places in droves, screaming their heads off.

By way of some minor research, I extrapolated the top ten most haunted places in Britain from the first suitable suggestions on Google.  These were: The Times, Time Out, Journalistic, The Guardian, Discover Britain, Away Resorts and Kayak.  I then compared the results with the aim of producing a combined top ten.  At No 1 is Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devon, which was included in 5 of the 7 lists; Blickling Hall, Norfolk, Pendle Hill, Lancashire and the Tower of London came next, with four returns each.  The next five – the Ancient Ram Inn, Gloucestershire, Glamis Castle, Forfar, Hampton Court Palace, Manningtree, Essex, the Skirrid Mountain Inn near Abergavenny and Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire – were all included in 3 top tens.

Those included in one or two lists were, in alphabetical order: Aston Hall, Birmingham; Beaulieu Abbey, Hampshire; Bodmin Moor, Cornwall; Borley Rectory, Essex; Buckland Abbey, Devon; Chester City Walls; Chillingham Castle, Northumberland; Corfe Castle, Dorset; Culloden Moor, Inverness; Duntulum Castle, Isle of Skye; Edgehill and Naseby battlefields, Warwickshire and Northamptonshire; Glasgow Necropolis; Hellfire Caves, Buckinghamshire; Hever Castle, Kent; Highgate Cemetery; Jamaica Inn, Cornwall; Llancaiach Fawr Manor, near Caerphilly; Margam Country Park, West Glamorgan; Mary King’s Close, Edinburgh; Minsden Chapel, Hitchin, Hertfordshire; Muncaster Castle, Cumbria; Pluckley village, Kent; the Red Lion, Avebury; Ruthin Gaol; Samlesbury Hall, Lancashire; Windsor Castle and Woodchester Mansion, Gloucestershire.

Other haunted places are available.  Now for a bit about each of the top ten.

THE TEN MOST HAUNTED PLACES IN BRITAIN

Berry Pomeroy Castle

On the face of it, Berry Pomeroy Castle is mostly the romantic ruin of an unfinished Jacobean mansion, built by the Seymours inside the walls of the Pomeroy family castle.  There is at least one ghostly horseman.  The story goes that, to escape capture and likely execution for treason about 800 years ago, Sir Henry Pomeroy rode his horse at full gallop down the side of the rocky outcrop on which the castle is built and killed himself.  Another version of this tale is two brothers who perished in similar fashion trying to escape their enemies.  However, the main haunting is the Blue Lady.  She is the shade of a beautiful Pomeroy daughter, who gave birth to a child after an incestuous relationship with her father.  She strangled the baby to hide her disgrace, concealing the body beside the stream at the foot of the castle mound.  It seems she seeks the child in perpetuity, but sight of the Blue Lady is a harbinger of death – particularly if your name is Seymour.

Berry Pomeroy offers good value with the benefit of a second vaporous female, in a different colour.  The White Lady is reputed to be the spirit of the beautiful Lady Margaret Pomeroy, imprisoned by her jealous (and less attractive) sister Eleanor for the crime of being in love with the same man.  It is said that she was starved to death, alone in the tower that now bears her name, and that her lovely spectre lures unwary travellers to fall to their deaths far below the battlements. 

They are a nasty pair, the ghostly ladies of Berry Pomeroy.  Some will also tell you that the castle offers additional spooky happenings – bumps in the night, creepy moans, ear-splitting shrieks, strange lights, uncomfortable sensations of malevolence, icy temperatures – and so on!

Here is a bit more about Berry Pomeroy

Blickling Hall

Every year, on the anniversary of her death, 19 May 1536, a headless Anne Boleyn rides in a coach through north Norfolk, sometimes following lanes that have long disappeared.  The journey always ends up on the Aylsham Road to Blickling Hall, where the carriage turns into the drive and disappears into the formal gardens.  They were not there in 1536, when Henry VIII disposed of his second queen with the help of a French swordsman in the Tower of London.  The young, slim, woman in the carriage holds her bloody head in her lap.  The coachmen are, similarly, lacking heads.

Blickling Hall is a grand, Jacobean, mansion built sometime after 1616.  People will tell you that it was Anne Boleyn’s childhood home, but don’t believe a word of it.  Anne was indeed probably born on the estate, in 1501 or 1507, but there is no visible trace of the house that she might have known and, anyway, she spent most of her childhood at Hever Castle, in Kent.  The current Blickling Hall was built in the century after Anne Boleyn lived.  Far be it for me to suggest that her potential appearance helps the National Trust sell tickets.

Here is a bit more about Blickling

Pendle Hill

Pendle Hill is an isolated hill in East Lancashire, part of the Pennines and included in the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  With its distinctive humpback shape, it is a local landmark, visible for miles around, and has a summit of 1,830 feet (558) metres.  The surrounding area is one of tiny hamlets and farms, steep gradients and stunning views, infamous for the story of the local Pendle Witches, tried and executed in Lancaster for witchcraft in 1612.  Pendle Hill is also famous for the place where George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, had a vision in 1652.

You will read that it is renowned for its links to witchcraft and devil worship, haunted by the spirits of the Pendle Witches.  Pendle Hill, is – as we have seen – reputedly, one of the most haunted places in Britain.  You can spend ghost weekends nearby, which include visits to the Hill at night.  One operator said that a visit “Left many guests and team shaken and frightened.”  Their website goes on to gush that “…there are occasions when we have picked up on the ghosts and spirits of others who have died on this daunting and barren hillside.  These include the ghosts of children, aircraftsmen who have landed here after having their airplanes (aeroplanes) bombed (do they mean ‘crashed’) in the war, along with other unfortunate souls who have died on the hill.  We have also encountered those who have taken their own lives here which is particularly sad.”  Which, frankly, is simply ghoulish.  I do not doubt that walking up Pendle Hill – or indeed any lonely hill – in the dark could be a spooky experience.

The tale of the Pendle Witches is, truly, a sad tale of superstition, prejudice and injustice.  There is nothing in it to suggest the so-called witches did anything witch-like on Pendle Hill, or even visited it; they had no reason to.  They died on gallows just outside Lancaster and were buried there.  Probably, the only people on Pendle Hill in the 17^th century were shepherds.  You may read of Bronze Age burials on it.  There is, indeed, a small, much overgrown Bronze Age burial site about half way up known as Jeppe Knave Grave, possibly reused by one Geoffrey Curtis, a local robber who was decapitated for his crimes in 1327.

Here is a bit more about the Pendle Witches

Tower of London

The Tower of London is one of Britain’s major tourist attractions.  It is a World Heritage Site and has been many things in its almost one thousand-year history – fortress, palace, prison, armoury, barracks, menagerie and, of course, jewel house.  Its history is peppered with gruesome tales of murders, executions and tortures, so it would be surprising, and disappointing, if it lacked the odd phantom or two.

One of the Tower’s favourite ghosts is the seemingly ubiquitous Anne Boleyn.  She walks to her place of execution by the White Tower, on Tower Green, inside the Tower.  Occasionally, she visits the Royal Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, where she is buried – along with other victims of execution, including Queens Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey.  Sometimes, quick-moving footsteps can be heard.  Lady Jane Grey’s spirit is also said to roam the Tower’s precincts, as is that of Sir Walter Raleigh.  Another notorious ghost of the Tower is a bear, presumably a relic of the beasts that used to be kept there.  One account says a sentry died of fright at the sight.  The Martin Tower is said to be haunted by the 7^th, 8^th or 9^th Earl of Northumberland – no one is sure which – and the ghosts of the little Princes have been seen in the vicinity of the Bloody Tower.  Another lingering spirit is that of Arabella Stuart, a cousin of Elizabeth I. Arabella married the Duke of Somerset without royal permission in 1610, enraging King James I.  The lovers fled England, but while the duke made it safely to Belgium, Arabella was imprisoned in the Tower, where she died of starvation in 1615.  One of the strangest apparitions spotted anywhere – and this only once at the Tower – is ‘a thing’ described as a glass tube containing white and blue opaque gases, which attempted to envelop Mrs Swift, wife of the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, before he hit it with a chair and it vanished.

Sadly, most of the hauntings at the Tower of London take place outside visiting hours, so the chances of seeing one are very limited. Ghosts do not like crowds.  But you wouldn’t want to spend the night there, would you?

Here is a bit more about the Tower of London

Ancient Ram Inn

The Ancient Ram Inn, a building said to be some 800 years old and a former pub, claims to be the most haunted building in England. It is situated in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, and seems to exist purely as a place to go and get frightened.

The Ram Inn does not appear in either of my two trusty guides to Haunted Britain, which I like to use to cross-reference what Google throws up.  Therefore, I can only assume that it must be relatively new to the haunting business.  According to the Haunted Britain website, a dreadful sense of foreboding is experienced as soon as you cross the pub’s threshold.  The first room is allegedly on the site of a pagan burial ground and the sound of a crying baby is often heard.  People have been thrown up the stairs, where a white mist has been seen.  The Bishop’s Room upstairs is ‘terrifying’ and can include the vision of a cavalier, two monks and the ghastly screams of a man who was murdered by having his head thrust into a fire (not necessarily in that order or simultaneously).  Guests sleeping in the room (and why would you?) have apparently attracted lustful attentions from something or other.  (No jokes about willies, pleased).  It doesn’t stop there: an innkeeper’s daughter is said to have been murdered upstairs in the attic, where the very lucky will experience a feeling of intense melancholy beneath the roof timbers.

Glamis Castle

Glamis Castle is the home of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.  It dates from the 14th century and has been home to the Lyon family since then.  It was the childhood home of the late Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.

The big story of Glamis is a secret chamber, the entrance to which is known only to three people at any one time – the earl, his heir and a third trusted person.  Inside the chamber lurks the Monster of Glamis.  Some believe the ‘monster’ was an awfully deformed child born to the family, who was kept away from public gaze until death, the room then being bricked up.  Others believe the room to be occupied by the 15^th century ‘Earl Beardie’, who having sold his soul to the Devil is condemned to play cards there until doomsday.  A third option is that the Lyons are prone to producing vampires every generation or so and lock them up in the secret chamber for the remainder of their unnatural lives.

Glamis is subject to the appearance of the occasional common, or garden, ghost too.  The best known is Janet, Lady Glamis, who was burned to death in 1537 in Edinburgh for witchcraft and plotting to poison King James V of Scotland.  She has been seen hovering by the castle’s clock tower, suffused in a reddish glow.  A White Lady that drifts around the grounds may be Janet, too.  Finally, ‘tis said that the ghost of a man has been seen in the village, in the vicinity of a Pictish stone known as Malcolm’s stone.  King Malcolm II of Scotland was murdered, or anyway died, nearby.

Hampton Court Palace

The origins of Hampton Court, on the Thames west of London, are medieval.  However, it is famously the palace created by Thomas Wolsey, cardinal, Lord Chancellor of England and friend of King Henry VIII in the 16^th century.  It was ‘acquired’ by Henry and is often associated with him and five of his wives.  It has been a royal palace ever since and was extensively remodelled by Sir Christopher Wren on behalf of William and Mary in the late 17th century.

Two of Henry’s wives visit as spectres.  Jane Seymour walks round with a lighted taper and Catherine Howard shrieks through the Great Hall to the State Apartments.  I remember being told that when visiting as a young boy; it was terrifying.  Henry himself has apparently been seen, one of his legs dragging.  The spectre of Mistress Penn, foster mother to Edward VI, haunted her old chambers after her tomb in in old Hampton church was disturbed in 1829.  She wears a long, grey, dress and has a disturbing tendency to lay a clammy, dead, hand on people while they are sleeping. 

A lady living in one of the grace and favour apartments at the palace complained about inexplicable noise at night.  Sometime later, workers discovered two human skeletons buried in a shallow grave outside her front door.

Finally, according to Haunted Britain by Antony D Hippisley Coxe (an invaluable guide) – in 1917, Police Constable 2657 stationed at the main gate saw two gentlemen and a group of ladies approach him.  But they vanished.

Manningtree, Essex

Manningtree is an old town, said by some to be the smallest in England.  It does not feature in my guides to spooky Britain, but its claim to infamy on that front seems to be based on the fact that its most famous resident, after Margaret Thatcher, was Matthew Hopkins (c1620-1647).  Hopkins had a flourishing career between 1645-47 as a self-styled ‘Witchfinder General’.  He allegedly accused hundreds of women across the East of England of being witches and brought many to trial.  I have not researched the facts of this.  Hopkins also lived in the nearby village of Mistley.

Manningtree seems to offer two options for the enthusiastic fear-seeker.  First is the village green on South Street, where four local women were hanged for the crime of witchcraft on 18 July 1645.  The ‘Visit Essex’ website says they were Anne West of Lawford, Helen Clark of Manningtree, Marian Hocket from Ramsey and Anne Cooper from Great Clacton. According to historical records, 92 witnesses testified against these women and 15 others during their trial.

Secondly, the popular Red Lion pub is said to be haunted by the ghost of Matthew Hopkins who is believed to have once lived there.  The Harwich and Manningtree Standard reported that the manager of the pub is not keen on being in the pub alone at night as she feels something is watching her at times.  She also said a few “odd” or unexplainable happenings have taken place in the pub.

Ooo-er.

Skirrid Mountain Inn

The Skirrid Mountain Inn is in the village of Llanvihangel Crucorney, north of Abergavenny.  It claims to be over 900 years old, Wales’ oldest pub, but some say the building only dates from the 17^th century.  Its website says, “Stay a night or two – or take part in one of our thrilling ghost hunts – and you might even encounter a spooky surprise if the legends are to be believed.”

The legends include that the Skirrid Inn was the site of a dinnertime massacre in 1175 and was also a local meeting point during Owain Glyndŵr’s revolt in the 15^th century.  The pub has a particular reputation as a courthouse where highwaymen and sheep rustlers were hanged.  Apparently, the rope marks can still be seen on the oak beam in the stairwell.  Of course, it does not end there.  The inn has all the signs – dropping temperatures, apparitions, things to be heard or felt, glasses thrown, people grabbing their throats and trying to strangle themselves.  I mean, you would, wouldn’t you?

The inn is haunted by one named person, Fanny Price, a former landlady who died of tuberculosis aged 35 in the 17^th century.  She wanders round with a proprietary air, sometimes with her husband, or father, Henry.  Fanny’s mortal remains lie in the local churchyard, I gather.

Whitby Abbey

Whitby and its abbey should be on any tour of the supernatural in the north of England.  The abbey is as atmospheric as it gets and features the charming tale of Caedmon, England’s first poet, who from a dream conjured a song of the beginning of created things.  Caedmon does not reappear.  However, the sound of a choir singing in an old Northumbrian dialect can sometimes be heard coming from the ruins at dawn on old Christmas Day, 6 January.  A vision that does appear is that of Caedmon’s mentor, the Abbess Hild, known as the White Lady, or Lady Hilda.  She pops up, wearing a rather fetching shroud, at the higher windows on the north side of the abbey church.

In the wider Whitby area, Hob is an apparition that makes motorists swerve and changes signposts around.  There is a coach that drives from Green Lane to the church and then plunges over the cliff.  A figure carrying its head under its arm appears between Whitby and Ruswarp and the ghost of a murder victim called Goosey (because he ate a goose) pops up not far away.

And then there is Whitby’s association with Dracula; but you know that’s just a story, right?

Here’s a bit about Caedmon and here’s a bit about Whitby and Dracula.

So, that is a top ten of Britain’s most haunted places.  What do you think?  My own view is that I need to revisit the topic, perhaps looking into less populist locations, or places where I have personally sensed something strange.  I’m sure we all do that sometimes, however cynical we are.

I would like to end with the favourite story of author Antony D Hippisley Coxe, quoted from his book, Haunted Britain.

“It starts with a Navy lieutenant who, from the day he married, spent his serving life overseas.  During this time his wife, who was always with him, frequently dreamed of a certain house.  As the children grew up ‘Mama’s dream house’ became a family joke.  The time came for the father to retire; he came home and they started to look for a house in the country.   Sure enough, as they approached one place on the house agent’s list, the mother said excitedly, ‘But we’re coming to my dream house’. This was met with derisory scepticism until she told them precisely the route they would take, although none of them had been there before.  They were met by the agent who showed them over the property. Every so often the mother would remark on some change. ‘But surely the stairs used to come down here? Oh! Yes, I remember now, they were altered when we were in Hong Kong; that would be about fifteen years ago.’ She was right every time. The children were thrilled, and as it was an old house asked if it was haunted.  ‘Yes,’ replied the agent, ‘there is even supposed to be a ghost.’  Of course, they had to buy the house.  Some time later the mother met the house agent who asked if they were happy there. ‘Perfectly’, was the reply, ‘it is so wonderful to be settled at last.  The children love it too, although they are a bit disappointed that they have never seen the ghost.’ ‘I did not think they would said the agent; ‘you are the ghost.  I have seen you here many times.’ “