All the locations mentioned in this article are well known haunted places, featuring in many books and websites. I have however, included one or two that may not be quite so well known, but as they are local to me I couldn't leave them out. This is a subject very close to my heart and therefore I have written this from memory. Consequently, if there are one or two details I miss out or incorrectly record, that's why! Unfortunately, due to the large number of locations I've included, I cannot provide a detailed description of each one.
50 Berkeley Square, London
Now a booksellers, this 4-storey building is the grounds for one of the most gruesome apparitions in the UK - apparently. One particular room in the building contains something so terrifying that anyone who tries to stay the night in the room is either found stark raving mad - or dead. The party walls in the buildings either side are said to feel 'electrified' to the touch, and many reports and rumours are connected to the house, nearly all of them involving somebody dying, or going mad, or both, after trying to spend the night there.
Borley Rectory - Essex
Once hailed as the most haunted house in England, Borley Rectory's most famous apparition was that of a Nun often seen drifting across the grounds. Legend has it that the Nun was bricked up alive in the house after being caught eloping with a monk from the monastery next door. When the site was excavated years later, some fragile bones were found...perhaps those of the Nun?
Borley Rectory was destroyed by fire in February 1939. Ghosts were said to have joined the crowd watching the fire...
Burton Agnes Hall - Yorkshire
This 16th century mansion was the home of the Griffith sisters. The youngest, Anne, especially loved the house, and as she lay on her deathbed after being mortally wounded in an attack by highwaymen, she asked her sisters to keep her head in her beloved house, rather than burying it with her body. Naturally, her sisters promised to carry out the macabre request, but after Anne died her head was buried with her body after all. Soon after the funeral echoes, groans, banging, shaking and other terrifying noises reverberated throughout the house. In desperation, the surviving Griffith sisters had Anne's body disinterred - to find the head already a skull, separated from the barely decayed body. Anne's skull was brought into the house and peace was restored once more. Attempts to remove it resulted in the disturbances returning. Eventually the skull was bricked up in the walls, behind the panel in the picture above. Since then no more noises have been heard, although a figure of a woman has been seen in the area...
Chingle Hall - Lancashire
Known as Britains oldest inhabited brick building, Chingle Hall is host to a variety of phenomena, including a poltergeist in the kitchen, a figure of a man walking past a window - 12 feet high - and 'Eleanor's room', supposedly the most haunted room in the house. In this room, Eleanor Singleton was kept captive for 12 years and eventually died or was murdered in the room at the age of 20. Visitors to the house have reported overwhelming feelings of sadness upon entering the room, and reportedly some have even felt an urge to throw themselves out of the window...
Glamis Castle - Scotland
The ancestral home of the late Queen Mother, Glamis (pronounced 'Glaams') Castle's ghosts include a Grey Lady who walks the corridors, a skeletally thin ghost known as Jack the Runner, a pageboy and a White Lady haunting the clocktower. But the most intriguing thing about this imposing castle is the 'Beast of Glamis'. According to legend, there is a secret room somewhere in the building, which was said to have housed a monster - possibly a deformed son of an Earl of Strathmore. Attempts to count the rooms from the inside, and then the windows from the outside have resulted in too many windows - but nobody has been able to determine where the hidden room is. The tale of the Beast is passed down from father to son in the family, no women are ever told, and the legend is closely guarded from the outside world. Reportedly a workman once stumbled on a hidden door which led to a long passage, which he investigated, only to emerge soon after shaking with terror...
Samlesbury Hall - Lancashire
This picturesque building in Preston, Lancashire was built in the 15th century. It is haunted by the ghost of a 17th century Lady Dorothy Southwood - known as Sickly Dorothy because of her apparition's reputed green pallor. In life, Lady Dorothy, a Catholic, fell in love with a Protestant and decided to elope. The night before, Dorothy's love crept to the house and was killed by her brother. Both families found out about the affair and Dorothy was sent to a convent abroad, where she went insane and died. Her ghost has been seen around the house and near the spot where her love died, and the sound of weeping has been heard throughout the house.
Plas Teg - Flintshire, Wales
This beautiful 17th century Jacobean mansion has been almost completely restored by the owner and current resident Cornelia Bayley, who doesn't mind sharing her home with its previous occupants. Known as the most haunted house in Wales, Plas Teg is a particular favourite location of mine as I have been a visitor to it several times. In one of the bedrooms, hangings used to take place, with the victims dropping through a trapdoor to the cellar below. The trapdoor is still there, only partially hidden by a rug. There are reports of poltergeist activity, apparitions seen inside and outside the house, and eerie noises and drops in temperature. I have never actually seen anything at Plas Teg myself, but the atmosphere certainly feels imposing, yet somehow benevolent. The road in front of the Hall is littered with orbs, spirits and phantom Hitchhikers. Many people have thought they hit someone in their car, only to stop and find nothing...
Marford village - Wrexham
A haunted village rather than a single building, I had to include Marford as it really is a beautiful place to visit. Most of the buildings are in a similar style to the old Smithy, above, and most have either a crucifix or eye shape featuring somewhere in their structure. the reason? The village is haunted by the ghost of Madam Margaret Blackbourne, who was pushed down the stairs and killed by her drunken womanising husband, after she tackled him late one night about who he had been with. Soon after her death her widower took another, younger, wife. Margaret's body is said to have clawed its way out of the grave and gone in search of the newly-weds, passing each house in the village, tapping and peering in at each window in her quest to find them. Eventually her body was laid to rest after tormenting her former husband, but her spirit still wanders through the village, tapping at windows and peering in...the crucifixes and eyes are said to ward off her ghost.
All the above is my own words, written from memory. The pictures were taken from:
The Scaree Page and
The BBC Website
