The most haunted places in London

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In the heart of old London lurks this forbidding grey stone building, which has been the unhappy home of some of this city's most famous and notorious wrongdoers. So it should come as no surprise that some of them are prone to reemerging from the grave as evening's darkness falls. This castle was first used as a prison in 1100, and in the following centuries it housed condemned souls including Henry VIII's wife Anne Boleyn, whose ghost is said to stalk the grounds, clutching her severed head. It was decommissioned in 1952, after the departure of its final prisoners, vicious east London gangsters Kray twins. But even though the Tower's now a busy tourist attraction, plenty of the old creepy atmosphere still lingers, especially on grey winter days where its shaded depths seem sapped of colour and hope. It boasts 13 ghosts in all, from the genuinely chilling (listen out for the screams of Guy Fawkes, tortured on the rack here) to the gently quirky (a ghostly bear has been spotted, remnant of the Tower's days housing the royal menagerie). Turn up at twilight, and prepare to have your blood thoroughly curdled.

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In Victorian times, this grand Tudor palace regaled visitors with tales of the many ghosts that stalked its corridors. The gift shop even did a roaring trade in postcards claiming to have captured these spooks on camera. These days, Hampton Court Palace is slightly more coy about its invisible residents, but even so, the stories are pretty compelling. Two of Henry VIII's wives are said to lurk here. Jane Seymour has been seen demurely climbing the Silverstick Stairs, clutching a lighted taper on her way to the room where she died. More disturbingly, visitors have reported sightings of teenage queen Catherine Howard screaming out for mercy after she escaped her guards. Make for the Haunted Gallery and see if you can feel a chill in the air. 

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Cemeteries are creepy territory and London is home to plenty. This burial ground for pets in Hyde Park (just behind Victoria Gate Lodge) is an especially surreal one. It's rarely open to the public but look out for special tours (around £15 and they sell out in a flash). The graveyard dates back to the 1880s and contains the remains of more than 1,000 pets, many in graves marked by tiny headstones. The garden graveyard isn’t far from Tyburn, the site where thousands of people have been executed over the centuries. You’ll never think of Hyde Park as just an idyllic picnic spot again.

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Abandoned railway lines do get creeperier than this – the Parkland Walk, which runs between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace, is lush with vivid greenery – but there is still something unsettling about wandering along the overgrown cutting. The part that passes Crouch End is the spookiest stretch of the route, where a looming ‘spriggan’ spirit watches from a disused railway arch, ready to startle unsuspecting passers-by. Be on your guard.

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That’s right, Tottenham has its own castle. There’s a downside, though: it’s a little on the haunted side. On bleak winter nights in November, you might catch the ghostly silhouette of Lady Constantia Lucy staring out the window. Lady Lucy killed herself by leaping off the balcony of the castle in the seventeenth century, taking her child with her. They say ‘great mystery’ surrounds the Lady’s death, but the fact she was kept locked away in a cramped room by her husband could be the answer to that enigma. As well as an unhappy spectre, the castle is home to a mini museum (open Wed-Sun 1pm-5pm), where you can see archive photos and documents on Haringey history.

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It sort of goes without saying this place is probably haunted; it was an actual surgical practice back when surgery was pretty, well, raw. Surgical anaesthetic wasn’t invented until 1846 – 24 years after the doctors in this practice were cutting open patients on the table... Ouch! Sadly (but perhaps inevitably back then), most patients died despite the best intentions of the surgeons. It’s the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe and has a certain ghastly edge because of it. 

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Once called the Jack the Ripper, this Spitalfields pub can't get away from its gory former namesake. In 1996, the landlord claimed The Ten Bells had been taken over by the ghost of Annie Chapman, murdered and mutilated by the Ripper in 1888. The serial killer’s victim may or may not roam the pub, but someone’s spirit allegedly does – poltergeist activity and the possible ghost of an old landlord have been reported by staff. 

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You know that moment when you’re on the Eurostar, and it suddenly dawns on you that you’re sitting 380ft below sea level? Imagine that, but you’re strolling on foot through a long cast iron tunnel beneath the Thames. Enter the green dome by the Cutty Sark and you’ll find yourself in its dimly lit passage, accompanied only by the echoing footsteps of the walkers chasing your path and the drip-drip-drip of the leaky roof. Brave the long passage and you’ll be rewarded when you reach the other side, with the gorgeous, eerie atmosphere-free Island Gardens waiting for you on the opposite side of the river.

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This corridor of woodland in Essex has likely been the site of many dodgy and hastily done burials thanks to its size and collection of semi-deserted open spaces. Stories abound about ghostly sightings, no doubt thanks to Roman battles, Norman invaders, Boudicca’s Iceni tribe and highwaymen. Dick Turpin, notorious robber and murderer (and now historic London haunter), is said to have used the Loughton Camp lookout spot as a hideout and supposedly still wanders the place now, even in death. He and the Essex Gang would use the forest as a hideout when they were busted for stealing deer. Oh, Dicky!

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Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities is just that, a cramped shop filled to the brim with oddball curios for the public’s viewing pleasure. It’s a bit creepy: you’ll find the bones of a dodo, occultists’ paintings, two-headed kittens and, erm, old McDonald’s kids’ toys. It’s endearing in that it's beautiful and interesting artefacts sit alongside the everyday dross and gross, subverting the notion of what and how a museum should function. It will scare the bejesus out of you, but you probably won’t find any ghosts here.

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It doesn’t look scary, but Highgate's historic pub, The Flask, boasts not one but two hauntings. It's said that the ghost of a Spanish barmaid, who hanged herself in the cellar having been left broken-hearted by the publican, looms around the premises, as does a man in a Cavalier's uniform, who likes to wander the main bar. To add to the fright factor, one of the first-ever autopsies (most likely illegally conducted on a corpse stolen from nearby Highgate Cemetery) is said to have taken place in the pub's Committee Room.

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The name of this small square is enough to give you chills. It might look pleasant enough, but Bleeding Heart Yard in Farringdon has a horrific history. Legend has it that on January 27, 1626, the mutilated body of society beauty Lady Elizabeth Hatton was found in the cobbled courtyard. She had been murdered, and her limbs strewn across the ground, but her heart still pumped blood. Gruesome stuff. 

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Barts is the oldest hospital in Britain (dating back to 1123), but sadly walls can’t talk, so it’s distilled its history into a museum in its north wing, where you can feed your morbid urges with displays of old surgical equipment, marble heads and dusty documents (including one signed by Henry VIII). The real attraction here, though, is William Hogarth. Two giant canvases by the artist can be seen from the museum, just above the grand staircase. Apparently, Hogarth was so pissed off about the hospital planning to commission an Italian artist for the job he painted these haunting Scripture stories for free. 

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This Islington boozer is said to be the location of dark goings-on – The Old Queen's Head is haunted by both a lady and a little girl. You might not be able to hear her over the sound of karaoke, but the little girl has been reported to weep, slam doors, run around the pub and up the stairs, even overtaking punters as they climb. 

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Since the mid 1970's locals have complainted about a brilliant orange light emanating from one of the tombstones in the western section of the City of London Cemetery in Wanstead. Despite repeated attempts, investigators have been unable to find any light source outside the graveyard that could account for the phenomenon. Spooky, eh? 

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Ah, a crepuscular evening among a stack of rotting coffins. How does that sound? That’s just what you’ll find in the dank chambers of the West Norwood Catacombs, an underground resting place for London’s Victorian dead. It might not look it, but these body pigeon holes were built out of a respect for the dead, a way of escaping the unkempt, swampy cemetaries that were overloaded with bodies from the cholera outbreak. The catacombs are rarely open to the public, save for occasional tours from the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery. Remember, it’s a resting place, not a box on the goth bucket list.

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An old railway line running from Lordship Lane to Crystal Palace is part of Sydenham Hill Woods, its tunnels now inaccessible to walkers. Not that you’d want to step inside; there are (uncorroborated) whisperings of a train carriage that was found inside the blocked-up tunnels, full of skeletons fully dressed in Victorian finery. 

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A joint steeped in criminal activity, this Hampstead drinking hole has tight connections with the legendary highwayman Dick Turpin, with one of the pub's bars named after him and some of his weapons on show to punters. The locals will tell you that The Spaniards Inn was Dick's birthplace, then later the location where his many crimes were plotted, and his ghost can supposedly be seen wandering the premises. Other dead dwellers include a former Spanish landlord, Juan Porero, who haunts the pub having been murdered by his brother, Francesco, over a shared love interest. The ghost of an unidentified lady wearing white has also been spotted.

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Bottled human foetuses, preserved monkey heads and misshapen skeletons are some of the creepy specimens that famed Georgian surgeon Sir John Hunter (considered to be the father of scientific surgery) collected to research disease – and they are all on display here at the Royal College of Surgeons museum. If deformed bodies and organs don't scare you, the early failed attempts at transplants might. 

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Europe’s first Grand Hotel wowed European royalty with electric lights, hydraulic lifts and air conditioning when it opened in 1865, and it still pulls fans in from around the world – some of those are ghosthunters. The rumours go that room 333 is the hub of all the activity. Apparently, a man in Victorian clothing is often spotted there, while other ghosts have been reportedly seen roaming the corridors.