The Paranormal Database

The painting Witches Going To Their Sabbath, By Luis Ricardo Falero.

Fox Hunt

Location: Seaham - Five Sisters (group of trees)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather dependent: Fog
Further Comments: A local legend says that the five trees are where an old witch coven would meet. One of the witches took the form of a fox and lead the local hunt over the edge of a cliff - the scene is repeated if the weather conditions are right.

Chained Figure

Location: Seaton Moor - Petermoor Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early Nineteenth century
Further Comments: The bottom of the hill was haunted by a translucent figure that would wave his chains at passersby.

A phantom part-pickled parson.

Pickled Parson

Location: Sedgefield - Old Rectory (building burnt down in 1791)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1791
Further Comments: A local legend says that this rectory was haunted by the ghost of a clergyman. The man had died a few days before the village tithes were due to be paid; his wife pickled his body and sat it at the dinner table, visible through the window, so she was able to collect and pocket the money due.

Shadows

Location: Shotton Colliery - Private residence (new build)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2008-2009
Further Comments: A former occupier of this property moved out after his dog chased a shadow out of the living room and up the stairs. They also reported hearing horse's hooves and experiencing poltergeist-like behaviour.

Illuminated Couple

Location: Shotton Colliery - Road which now runs through Bracken Hill Business Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1970s
Further Comments: While driving along a minor road, two witnesses spotted a man and a woman walking towards them in the road ahead, lit up white as if from an oncoming car. As the road was narrow, the driver slowed to a safe speed. As the car drew level to the couple, both suddenly vanished. While the man had a 1930s trench coat, the woman wore a normal winter coat that any other person would wear.

Glowing Eyed Shadow

Location: Shotton Colliery - Unidentified cottage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1900
Further Comments: A miner named Lamb and his family moved into this cottage, only to be faced with something which rattled and shook the front door every night. A practical joker was first thought to blame, but after a night of snow, the door was opened and no footsteps could be seen. Lamb's son spotted a shadowy figure outside the cottage one night, which reportedly had glowing red eyes.

Floating Face

Location: Spennymoor - Area of land next to old railway line (now Rosa Shafto nature reserve)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1982
Further Comments: A large, solid, white face was spotted floating alongside a silver birch tree by four children. The children fled home, with at least one of the witnesses having nightmares of the incident for years after the event.

Elizabeth Bessie Hewitson

Location: Spennymoor - Whitworth Hall County Park Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Dressed in black, Elizabeth is still said to walk around the building even though she died in the 1800s. Another ghost here, this time male, is reported to have died of a broken heart.

Bloody Horseman

Location: Staindrop - A688 between town and Raby Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This phantom rider on a white horse has his face covered in blood. The entities are said to slowly descend into the ground.

Party

Location: Stanley - South Causey Inn
Type: Other
Date / Time: 15 October 2009, around 23:45h
Further Comments: While in this pub with her friend, this witness heard a large group of people enter the building. The witness turned and noticed the group were wearing bright clothing, with one woman sporting a turquoise coloured outfit with lots of feathers. The witness briefly turned to her friend intending to point at the crowd, but when she turned back, the colourful group had vanished.

Woman

Location: Stanley - Town Centre, close to the market
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1996
Further Comments: A witness here had a fleeting glimpse of a middle aged woman dressed in 1920s clothing. The figure disappeared 'in the blink of an eye'.

Music

Location: Stockton-on-Tees - Castlegate Shopping Centre, Stephenson House (demolished 2022)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s, 2019
Further Comments: Strange music and sounds are said to occasionally be heard at night in this shopping centre. In 2019 a ghost hunting team claimed to have recorded a phantom figure with a thermal imaging camera.

Antisocial Woman

Location: Stockton-on-Tees - Manhattan's public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2017
Further Comments: North Yorkshire Paranormal Investigations' claimed this building to be one of Teesside's most haunted, home to a phantom child, and a woman who instructed visitors to leave.

Girl

Location: Stockton-on-Tees - Stockton railway station
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Post-1937
Further Comments: This station is reputedly haunted by a girl killed on the site in 1937.

Stephen Hollin

Location: Tanfield - Cauldknockles Farmhouse (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Likely pre-twentieth century
Further Comments: Murdered by his two nephews (who also burnt and hid his body), farmer Stephen Hollin's ghost returned to the area after one of the men confessed to the crime. Hollin would be seen wearing a brown suit and hat, and blamed for poltergeist activity that broke out on the farm. Not all the ghost's antics were malicious; one maid claimed the phantom helped her milk the cows, while another said the ghost helped her carry heavy buckets of meat. The ghost was eventually blamed for the death of a serving boy, found murdered with a plough blade, and an exorcism performed at the farm.

Andrew Mynarski

Location: Teeside - Teeside International Airport (was Middleton St George airfield), hangars and nearby St George Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1950s onwards, pilot seen in hotel 1982 and detected 1990s
Further Comments: Mynarski died after trying to save a trapped pilot in a Lancaster bomber as it dived towards earth. He was awarded the VC for his efforts. Mynarski's restless spirit currently walks the area he was stationed during the war and was seen outside the control room and hangars in the 1950s. Another version of the story names the phantom as a Canadian pilot named Mullen. In 1982 a pilot reported feeling a weight on his bed which vanished when he told it to go away, and although this could be sleep paralysis, the pilot researched further and found 20 more people who had experienced the same event. Another pilot reported many crews would sleep with the lights left on, and after waking to the smell of burning flesh (which swiftly dissipated), refused to stay in the hotel again.

Woman's Face in a Window

Location: Thornaby - Private house along Lockton Crescent
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1990s
Further Comments: A wedding photograph taken in front of an empty house revealed the image of a middle aged woman staring out of the window from inside the building. The owners of the house did not recognise the strange figure and had no explanation to who she was.

Salty

Location: Thornley - Thornley Workingmen's Club
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: January 2011
Further Comments: A person working in the upper part of the building reported seeing a cloudy figure which emerged from a dressing room only to vanish near the witness. The witness was told by staff that the ghost was nicknamed 'Salty' and it likes to make its 'presence known'.

Black Shape

Location: Thornley - Unnamed council house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1947-1963
Further Comments: A family living in this newly constructed house encountered a 'black shape' dozens of times over this period, often accompanied by a horrible presence. The family eventually informed the local vicar who prayed in the house - the haunting ceased.

Barguest

Location: Throstlenest - General area
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Little is known about the Throstlenest shuck, which patrols the area between Darlington and Houghton.

An old postcard of Tynemouth in Durham.

Captured Sea Serpent

Location: Tynemouth - Coastline off Cullercoats, and 57 Grey Street
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 1849
Further Comments: Though a good description of the creature is lacking, fishermen from this area chased and killed a sea monster, the body of which they brought back to land. The carcass was taken into a shop along Grey Street, and entry was charged at several shillings per view.

A sleeping person in the hidden cave.

Person Asleep

Location: Tynemouth - Wizard's Cave (exact location not known)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The Wizard's Cave is said to contain a person who is in a magical sleep.

Maid

Location: Walworth - Walworth Castle Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The castle is reputed to be haunted by a maid bricked up behind a wall after an affair with the lord of the manor resulted in pregnancy. She is reputedly seen emerging from the wall or heard climbing a spiral staircase.

Screaming

Location: Weardale - The North of England Lead Mining Museum - formally the killhope lead mine
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2003
Further Comments: Three ghost hunters wanting to raise money for charity tried to spend the night here, only to be scared off by screaming of a ghostly woman from a nearby wood.

Mary Ann Cotton

Location: West Auckland - Bench (nicknamed Mary's Seat), Darlington Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local myth says that the bench is located where 20 Johnson Terrace once stood, the home of serial killer Mary Ann Cotton and the site where she poisoned three people. It is reported that at times the bench is surrounded by a coldness, although the sceptical would say this is due to the open village green by which the bench stands.