The Paranormal Database

Boar

Location: Holmrook - Forest
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: Wild boar have been reported living in this area of woodland.

Jamaican Woman

Location: Ireby - Overwater Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 01 January (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Formerly Overwater Hall, the building was purchased in 1814 by Joseph Gillbanks. Legend has it that Gillbanks had an affair with a Jamaican girl who he tried to drown at Overwater Tarn when she told him she was pregnant. As she struggled to pull herself out of the water, he chopped her arms off. Her armless apparition is now said to appear here once a year, although one report suggests that she could have last been seen in August.

Child Protection

Location: Kendal - Angel Inn
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 1745
Further Comments: Highlanders raided the town in 1745 and a couple of the soldiers entered this inn. The owner and his family had hidden themselves, but in their haste forgot about their young child who the Highlanders discovered. As one of the raiders reached to grab the child, a ghostly figure appeared and drove the Highlanders from the building.

Funeral Procession

Location: Kendal - Blease Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This phantom procession is for a woman who died of a broken heart after her lover died fighting in the crusades. A bedroom in the hall is also reported to be haunted, though it is unclear whether this relates to the same woman.

Faceless Woman

Location: Kendal - Brigsteer Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth century, 1980s
Further Comments: A woman was killed in a coach accident along this road in the nineteenth century. Shortly after the accident, a man entered a horse-drawn carriage and found himself sharing with a woman wearing a hooded cloak. She lifted the hood, revealing an empty space where her head should have been. The man jumped from the moving carriage. During the 1980s, there was a spot along the road where dogs refused to pass, which was believed to relate to the story of the faceless woman.

Howgill's Revenge

Location: Kendal - Grayrigg Hall (no longer standing, though some of the original buildings used by a local farm)
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Seventeenth century
Further Comments: The hall's owner, Magistrate Duckett, sentenced the Quaker Howgill to spend time in Appleby prison. The Quaker cursed Duckett, saying his name would vanish from history and his house would be home to owls and jackdaws. Sure enough, Duckett's children died without bearing children of their own, and his home was reduced to rubble, used by only birds.

Dog and Two Women

Location: Kendal - Levens Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Never seen together, a ghostly woman in pink clothing and another woman in grey have been reported in the area - the latter figure has been known to play with the traffic along the driveway. A little black dog haunts the main staircase, while a local legend states that no male heir will inherit the hall until a white doe is born in the nearby park.

Frances Grimshaw?

Location: Kendal - Meadowbank House (demolished 2012)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: January 2012
Further Comments: The supervisor of the demolition team working on the house, Robert Johnson, took a photograph of the property and noticed a strange figure in one of the windows. The son of the former owner, David Grimshaw, believed the figure to be his mother Frances, manifesting to protest at the destruction of her former home.

Moving Floorboards

Location: Kendal - Sizergh Castle
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: While not happening in living memory, it is claimed one room here had its floorboards removed and scattered by unseen hands on several consecutive nights. Sobs of a phantom woman have also been heard, and Catherine Parr is said to haunt the Queen's Room.

Sounds of a Coach

Location: Keswick - A6
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: A cyclist who paused on the road to relight his lamp heard the thump of hooves and the wheels of a coach pass him, even though nothing was visible. A local legend says that the phantom sounds belong to a couple who ran away to wed, but one angry parent followed and shot them both.

All of Horrors of the Lakes

Location: Keswick - Ambroth House (no longer standing?)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 31 October (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A local legend says that all the ghosts and spirits that haunt this part of England meet at the house once a year.

Bassie

Location: Keswick - Bassenthwaite Lake
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 1961
Further Comments: A humped creature between twelve and thirteen feet (3.7 - 4 metres) long, with a head like a python featured in a couple of newspaper reports. This sighting should not be confused with reports of 'Eachy', a known hoax attached to the lake in 2006.

Uncountable Stones

Location: Keswick - Castlerigg Stone Circle
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: These stones refuse to give up their number, always tallying differently if counted (but I make it 33).

Robert Southey

Location: Keswick - Greta Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: First quarter of twentieth century
Further Comments: Poet Laureate, Southey spent a large part of his life at the hall. His ghost was seen reading a book by lamplight, disappearing when dawn arrived. Another time he was seen looking into a bathroom window (much to the distress of the lady now climbing into the bath).

Apron Leakage

Location: Kirkby Lonsdale - Casterton Stone Circle
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Stones still present
Further Comments: This stone circle was created while the Devil used his apron to carry rocks - the strings snapped, the stones fell, and the devil just let them lie.

Built for a Soul

Location: Kirkby Lonsdale - Devil's Bridge
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Still stands
Further Comments: The Devil built this bridge, in return for the soul of the first who crossed it. Alas for him, a local woman let her dog run across it first, and so Satan left with his new pet. A more recent story concludes by saying that when a new bridge was constructed in 1932, Satan was so upset that he delayed the opening by creating heavy rain, hail, and snowstorms.

Rock Hit

Location: Kirkby Lonsdale - Devil's Punch Bowl
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Depression still present
Further Comments: Old Nick appears to have taken a liking to Kirkby Lonsdale - he once threw a large boulder at a church here, scoring a direct hit. The rock created the depression now known as the Devil's Punch Bowl, and the church is said to be intact but buried deep underground.

Blind Lord Wharton

Location: Kirkby Stephen - A685 between town and Ravenstonedale
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Wharton was struck blind (some say by God, for punishment for his sins) as he travelled home - his phantom now walks erratically, attempting to find its footing.

Flitting Lights

Location: Kirkby Stephen - Angill Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late nineteenth century
Further Comments: When the castle was sold in 1897, a newspaper published a story describing residents close to the castle being awed by the flittering lights which could be seen while the building stood empty.

Pendragon

Location: Kirkby Stephen - Pendragon Castle
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Castle still stands (on private land)
Further Comments: Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur, resided here until he and a hundred of his men were poisoned by the Saxon invaders. Some believe Pendragon's ghost remains here. Another ghost, that of Sir Hugh de Morville, haunts the building as punishment for murdering Thomas Becket. Finally, a hoard of treasure hidden here is protected by a phantom black hen that replaces the soil of any hole dug just as quick as it is removed!

An old postcard of Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria.

Mustard Grinders

Location: Kirkby Stephen - Skinkrith Bridge and River Eden
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: According to local legend, anyone who places an ear in an opening to the rock can hear a low grumbling that was thought to be employees of the Devil crushing mustard seeds. Jingling Annas also haunts the bridge - her hands reduced to stumps by the manacles she was forced to wear.

Footfalls

Location: Kirkoswald - Former Nunnery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: These footsteps reportedly belong to the nuns which once resided here.

Sunken Church

Location: Kirksanton - Village Green
Type: Legend
Date / Time: 25 December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: The church of the village sunk beneath the ground - whether God's hand or earthquake is unknown. One is said to be able to hear the bells if an ear is placed on the earth, while another version of the story says the ringing only occurs on Christmas Day.

An old sketch of a skull (public domain).

Reappearing Skulls

Location: Lake Windermere - Calgarth Hall
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Sixteenth century?
Further Comments: Belonging to a married farming couple, the skulls came back to haunt the person who framed them for a crime that resulted in their execution. No matter how they were destroyed, the grinning skulls always returned to the hall, until the death of the man they cursed.

Crier of Claife

Location: Lake Windermere - Ferry Nab
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: While the spirit is reportedly exorcised, some still say they can hear ghostly screams and cries coming from the lake late at night. The cause of the commotion has been seen only once, and the witness died of shock a few days later, without ever speaking a word.