The 10 most haunted places in the UK

Blue Bell Hill – also known, less romantically, as the A229 – is supposedly the most haunted road in England. A bride in white is said to stalk its hard shoulder, thought to be the unquenched spirit of Suzanne Browne, a 22-year-old tragically killed with two friends in a crash on the night before her wedding in 1965. Drivers have reported a ‘woman in white’ standing – waiting? – by the treeline, sometimes stepping into the road only to vanish at the moment of impact. In 1972, Bob Vandepeer claimed he gave a lift to a young hitchhiker there, only to find her vanished from the back seat when he turned around.  I have even met a man who said he saw a young woman in white standing by the side of the A277 as he drove home one night. ‘I’m not a ghost guy at all,’ he told me, ‘But I know what I saw. She was there, and then she wasn’t.’ Still today, sightings of the ghostly hitchhiker crop up from time to time.

Common Road, Rochester, ME5 9RG

So much to say about Wistman’s Wood – not only one of Britain’s last remaining temperate rainforests but said to have once been a hunting ground of the Devil himself. The twisted ‘dwarf’ oaks hang low here, and the mist lies heavy. 

It is said to be home to spectral hounds – the Wisht Hounds of the Wild Hunt – who chase lost souls across the moor at night. Not far from the wood’s north edge is a so-called ‘lych way’, or corpse path, where dead bodies were carried to Lydford church. There have been reported sightings of processions of monks in white robes silently passing through. Walkers often report feeling watched, hearing growls from the undergrowth, or being overwhelmed by an inexplicable dread beneath the gnarled, beautiful branches of this magical forest.

Two Bridges, Princetown, PL20

This 12th Century pub is so haunted that they even shut it down in the 1960s because nobody would go. ‘It was because of all the rumours about witchcraft and child sacrifice,’ current deputy manager Tom Dodd explains over the phone.

Now a haunted attraction, guests have reported being dragged from their beds, pinned down by invisible hands, or awaking to dark figures watching from the corner. ‘There’s meant to be an incubus and a succubus on site,’ adds Dodd (translation: a male and female sex ghost). ‘John (the late owner) himself was attacked by a succubus. He never slept in the same bedroom again.’

In 1997, an excavation of the kitchen revealed bones of a woman and a child alongside a sacrificial dagger, and later a mummified cat in the wall. ‘A few weeks ago a couple came in and sang to a rocking horse – and it moved on command, Dodd adds. ‘Last week, a woman was attacked in the barn. It’s all on video.’

8 Potters Pond, Wotton-under-Edge, GL12 7HF

Margam Country Park in South Wales has more ghosts than it knows what to do with. Begin at the ruined chapel of Capel Mair ar y Bryn, where long-dead monks are said to resent the company of the living. In 2010, the American TV series Ghost Hunters International filmed there and claimed to capture audio of a monk telling them to leave. They also reported cold spots and orbs, one of the most classic ghostly sightings around.

Then there’s the great gothic castle, where a gamekeeper named Robert Scott, murdered by a poacher, still prowls in fury, said to particularly enjoy slamming doors and hurling things at guests. Though, the worst offenders in the poltergeist stakes, though, are the alleged Victorian children, who shift objects in empty rooms and laugh without bodies. Oh, and there’s the ghost of a blacksmith who walks the grounds outside on one eternal, infernal shift. But they’re nothing compared to the most famous ghost here, the White Lady, a misty female form seen descending the great gothic staircase. Some believe her to be Emily Talbot, a former owner of the house who, upon her death in 1918, was one of the wealthiest women in Britain.

Nr Port Talbot, SA13 2TJ

Mind the gap, and mind the Black Nun. Deep beneath the Square Mile, below the commuters and the hedge funds, amid the shadowed tunnels and clanking Central Line trains, drifts the ghost of Sarah Whitehead. She’s been glimpsed on Threadneedle Street and in the winding passageways of Bank station. There are some modern-ish sightings too: a station worker reportedly saw an old woman on a CCTV monitor at 2am, long after the station had closed, and sightings are said to run as late as 2001.

But who was she? Her brother Philip, it is said, was a clerk at the Bank of England until he was hanged for forgery in 1811. Sarah was never quite able to accept it. Draped in black widow’s weeds, she returned to the Bank day after day, pale and wild-eyed, demanding to know if he was there. The staff pitied her at first, but her visits turned bitter, and then hostile. She died in 1837 without ever getting her answer. Now she is seen stalking the streets above and the platforms below, searching, searching, forever searching. She’s been glimpsed on Threadneedle Street and in the passageways of Bank station. There are some modern-ish sightings too: a station worker reportedly saw an old woman on a CCTV monitor at 2am, long after the station had closed, and sightings are said to run as late as 2001.

Princes St, London, EC3V 3LA

In a tough field, this ruined Norman stronghold has the (un)enviable distinction of being the most haunted castle in Britain. Its star ghost is The Grey Lady, a sorrowful spectre spotted numerous times gliding silently across the grounds. It is said to be the spirit of Dorothy Beaumont, a noblewoman who died, with her baby, in childbirth at the castle in the 1600s.Before she died, she is said to have made two final requests; that she be buried beside her baby, and that a feast be held in her memory. 

Neither happened, so now she walks, heartbroken and betrayed, tethered to this earthly realm by unfinished business. I’ll never forget visiting the place on a school trip in the 1990s when a classmate, Amy, screamed in one of the rooms. Shaking, she swore she had seen a tall woman in grey, standing utterly still in the shadows, staring at her. When teachers rushed in, the room was empty. Poor Amy cried the whole way back to London.

Spend long enough in any graveyard and you can’t help but be touched by the tranquillity of it all, the memento mori. But here, you may also be touched by the ghost of George ‘Bluidy’ Mackenzie, the infamous 17th century lawyer. His mausoleum has stood here since he died in 1691. But it wasn’t until 2004 that two youths broke in, decapitated the corpse inside with a penknife, and reportedly used the head like a hand puppet. Now George is pissed. Since then, hundreds of visitors have claimed scratches, cuts, and shoves from something they cannot see. Some say they’ve encountered ‘cold spots’, odd smells and random bangs.  Greyfriars was also a hotspot for 19th century grave robbers, and it is now said by many to be the most haunted graveyard on Earth.

Greyfriars Place, Edinburgh, EH1 2QQ

Not every unquenched spirit is content with haunting a grand old country pile or misty wood. Some prefer a branch-line commute. At Leamington Spa, built in the shadow of the 1800s, the staff have long endured doors that slam in empty corridors, footsteps without feet and machinery that stirs in the dead of night. The chill is deepest in a forgotten basement beneath platform 3, where a half-blocked staircase spirals down to nowhere and papers are said to scatter themselves across the offices above. So plagued was the station that in 2014 its operator appointed a Supernatural Liaison Officer, Nick Rees, whose duties reportedly included inspecting the ghosts’ tickets, pointing the lost towards their trains, and ensuring the departed kept their pallid hands-off passengers’ sandwiches.

Nighttime security officer Stephen Herbert said in 2014: ‘I often see and hear ghosts on both platforms but from what I have seen they are nice ghosts and have good energy.’ It remains the only station in Britain with a dedicated undead policy.

Old Warwick Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV31 3NS

‘Skye’s not just a place,’ a Scottish friend once told me with a distant look. ‘It’s more of a feeling.’ I laughed, but then I went. Standing among its hills, I understood at once what Samuel Johnson meant when he wrote, ‘the phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of the Hebrides are of a different kind; the power of the hills is the power of solitude.’

Skye’s sublime desolation can swallow your imagination whole, and that’s before you reach the Fairy Pools or Fairy Glen. Its most haunted place is Duntulm Castle, where the restless ghost of a nursemaid – murdered after she dropped a clan chief’s baby from a window into the waves below – still wanders looking for the child. Or listen for the cries of the treacherous Hugh MacDonald who – in 1603 – was left to die of thirst in the castle’s dungeon with a plate of salted beef and an empty water jug. His rasping groans still echo about the clifftop. Local lore states that these screams ultimately prompted the MacDonalds to abandon Duntulm around 1730 for Monkstadt House.

Nr Duntulm, Isle of Skye, IV51 9UF

The great actress Maggie Smith once said that every performance is like a ghost: ‘It’s there, and then it’s gone.’ Same can be said for the Man in Grey, who stalks the Upper Circle at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – Britain’s most haunted theatre. He appears, they say, only during matinees, wearing a powdered wig and tricorn hat. Sometimes he rises and glides silently amongst the seats before dissolving into the wall at a certain spot. His name has long since been swallowed by the mists, but legend tells of a young 17th-century gentleman who took an actress for a lover. They would meet for trysts in the Upper Circle when she came off stage. That is, until a jealous rival stabbed him to death, concealing his body in the recess of a nearby passageway and bricking him in. Then, over a century later in 1848, renovations unearthed a skeleton behind an old wall, a knife still buried in its ribs.

He’s not the Theatre Royal’s only unquiet ex-actor. Some claim to have glimpsed the spectre of Joseph Grimaldi, the legendary Victorian clown, drifting in the wings before shows. Occasionally, he bestows a helpful shove upon nervous performers. Incidentally, you can visit his grave in Grimaldi Park, off Pentonville Road, near King’s Cross – the only one in Britain that invites visitors to dance upon it.

Catherine St, London WC2B 5JF