The Paranormal Database

Relocation

Location: Rochford (Essex) - New houses along Rectory Road
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Activity more intense during winter (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: A group of residential buildings erected on the site of a demolished mansion are reputed to be paranormally active, mainly by disruption by poltergeist, though manifestations occasionally happen.

Tech Support

Location: Chelmsford (Essex) - Civic Theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: All year, but especially in December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: This building is haunted by the spirit of a technician killed on Duke Street. Visitors would sometimes ask about the helpful man who had guided them around, only to be told that it was the ghost. There are also reports of footsteps on stage and of an overwhelming uncomfortable feeling on the Balcony and the stairs to the Wardrobe/FOH Office. In December, the spirit takes the form of a white butterfly, seen (traditionally) on one show during Christmas week.

Pale Donkey

Location: Studland (Dorset) - Newton Heath
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A small white donkey haunts the area where its master was robbed and murdered while travelling across the heathland. While the owner's body was found, the donkey vanished without trace, now only appearing briefly before Christmas once a year.

Sobbing

Location: Wimborne (Dorset) - Griffin Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: One room in the hotel is filled with sobbing around Christmas - some say the cries belong to a girl upset at her father's death. A grey haired woman in a brown skirt has also been reported in the hotel and was seen near Bedroom 4 during the 1940s.

Stealing Cashier

Location: W11 (Greater London) - Former Coronet Cinema, Notting Hill Gate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Caught stealing from the night's takings, this cashier killed herself in the building when confronted by the manager. Her footsteps are heard running up the stairs towards the area where she leapt from, breaking her neck in the fall.

Coffin Carriers

Location: Castel (Guernsey) - Moulin de Haut (lane)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: To spot the phantom funeral procession is said to bring bad luck or death (or both!).

The Piccadilly Line of Covent Garden Station, London.

William Terriss

Location: WC2 (Greater London) - Covent Garden Station, Piccadilly Line
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around midnight, winter months (reoccurring). Last seen 1972?
Further Comments: An actor, Mr Terriss was stabbed to death in December 1897 at a nearby theatre. His ghost, tall in stature, has been seen dressed in a grey suit with white gloves, standing on the platform late at night.

Headless Chicken Runs Blindly

Location: Layer Marney (Essex) - Layer Marney Churchyard
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: With an unknown origin, a headless chicken appears and runs blindly around the gravestones.

Headless Horses

Location: Penryn (Cornwall) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Christmas Time (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Pulling a coach, this team of headless horses manifests around the season of goodwill. Legend states if stared at, it will whisk the witness away to the nether realm.

Castle Rising, Norfolk.

Queen Isabella's Crazy Laughter

Location: Castle Rising (Norfolk) - Keep area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Cold winter nights (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Edward III held his mother here for twenty seven years - she was accused of assisting in the murder of her husband Edward II in 1328. Rumoured to have lost her sanity towards the end, people have heard her laughter and screams on cold winter nights. More recently, witnesses have reported the eerie sounds of children playing and singing nursery rhymes.

Ralph's Wife

Location: Banks (Lancashire) - Ralph's Wife's Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Dark winter nights (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Ralph was either a smuggler or a fisherman - either way, he vanished at sea. The ghost of his wife is said to walk between St Stephens Church to Fiddler's Ferry, carrying a lamp so he can find his way home.

Wailing

Location: Steyning (Sussex) - Bramber Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Maude of Ditching's screams and cries can occasionally be heard in the ruins - her lover was bricked up in the dungeon after being caught by Maude's husband. The castle is also said to be haunted by two children seen begging for food, though they vanish if approached.

Duchess

Location: Bristol (Somerset) - Area around Duchess Lake (now filled in) and Dower House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December (reoccurring) - exact date not known
Further Comments: Duchess Elizabeth Somerset fell from her horse and broke her neck - her ghost is said to ride around the area. A local legend says that if you wait near her monument, three knocks will signify her presence.

Headless Figure

Location: Castel (Guernsey) - Fauxquets Valley
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December (reoccurring), between 22:00h - 00:00h
Further Comments: A tall headless figure is said to haunt the valley during the winter months.

A skull-headed horseman.

Dark Horseman

Location: Ellistoun (Renfrewshire) - Ellistoun Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December nights (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Possessing a grinning skull barren of flesh, this dark horseman and his black steed gallop furiously down muddy paths towards the nearby waterfalls.

Fighting Armies

Location: East Lulworth (Dorset) - Flower's Barrow and Grange Hill
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: December, during wartime
Further Comments: The ghostly figures found here when Britain is at war generate screams, horses and the clashing of swords as they move over the hills overlooking the coast. The apparitions are said to have last appeared during the Second World War.

Squeaking Cycle

Location: Chester (Cheshire) - Saltney Junction railway station, area of
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early winter mornings (reoccurring)
Further Comments: An old man on a squeaky bike haunt the area around this old station - it is thought that he hanged himself in a shed here.

Traffic Dodger

Location: Wigglesworth (Yorkshire) - Road leading to Tosside
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early winter mornings (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A couple of car accidents that occurred along this road were blamed on a flitting female form which ran out in front of the vehicle before disappearing. Locals say it is a girl who drowned nearby.

Marge in a Bridal Gown

Location: Terrington St Clement (Norfolk) - Parish Church, the 'Lovell' pew
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Every Sunday before Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Legend says that the chest next to the west door once contained the remains of a bride trapped inside after a game of hide and seek went wrong. She is reported to emerge once a year to join in with the church choir.

Blinding Light

Location: Newquay (Cornwall) - Old Headland area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A floating light is said to unnerve local fishermen as it moves along the path before vanishing neat the old lifeguard and boatyard. One story is that the light belonged to a smuggler, trying to wreck unsuspecting craft.

Cheriton

Location: Folkestone (Kent) - Enbrook Manor
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: November / December (?) 1917
Further Comments: Poltergeist activity broke out around the site of an excavation, with one man hit multiple times by rocks. Another witness claimed to have seen stones rise and fall from the ground. A hammer, chairs and a pickaxe were all seen to move unaided. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the area but did not offer an explanation to the events.

Simon Cunliffe

Location: Colne (Lancashire) - Wycoller Hall
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Once a year, middle of winter (reoccurring), sound recorded 26/07/1996
Further Comments: Simon rides the area where he once lived, blowing his horn prior to a tragedy. It is said that he scared his wife to death by riding up the staircase of their home, chasing a fox that had ran inside to escape the hunt (ghost hunters Colin Veacock and Peter Crawley recorded a sound like a riding crop here in 1996). Another tale states that the horseman is not Simon but an assassin, killed by a manservant before he could murder the master of the hall. The young daughter of a family living here during the twentieth century told her mother that a 'white woman' would visit her during the night - the sightings stopped when the child changed bedrooms.

Paths in Dunwich, Suffolk.

Hobby Lanterns

Location: Dunwich (Suffolk) - Paths around Dunwich
Type: Other
Date / Time: Pre-1924, said to be most active between 29 September and 24 December
Further Comments: Will-o-the-Wisps, known locally as Hobby Lanterns, were said to lure people off the paths at night after extinguishing the victim's own light source.

Phantom Runner

Location: Bolton (Greater Manchester) - Hall i' th' Wood Manor House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Runner between 25 December - 6 January (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Always heard but never seen, this spook frequents the old staircase, the footsteps always rushing. Other ghosts reported here include an old woman seen in the kitchen and two men, one dressed in black and the other green.

Headless Anne Boleyn

Location: Rochford (Essex) - Rochford Hall, and roads in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twelve days following Christmas (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: At the family home of Anne Boleyn, the former queen's decapitated ghost walks briefly around the building after Christmas.