The Paranormal Database

May

Location: Leicester - Braunstone Hall and Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Several phantoms are reported to haunt this area, including a young woman in white who walks the corridors. She is named May, who died aged eighteen of tuberculosis. Other phantoms are said to be carriages pulled by black horses which vanish into the trees, a groom who hanged himself in a room above the stables, and a sad looking boy who glazes from an upstairs window.

Richard III

Location: Leicester - Car park (and surrounding area)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2005-2013
Further Comments: Philippa Langley felt a strange sensation crossing this car park, on a location marked by an 'R', and virtually on top of the location where Richard III's body was later found (the 'R' has been in the car park since the eighties and was painted by an attendant). The offices of Denham Foxon & Watchorn which overlook the car park were reported to be home to mysterious noises, also (now) blamed on the king.

Cat Anna

Location: Leicester - Castle ruins
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Nineteenth century
Further Comments: The bogeyman-like witch known as Cat Anna was said to live in the cellars of the ruined castle. It is likely that this legend and the story of Black Annis are connected.

Hooded Figure

Location: Leicester - Cathedral Church of St Martin (aka Leicester Cathedral)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Figure unknown, bells circa 1800
Further Comments: This hooded phantom was said to glide around the churchyard and periodically kneel with its head on the ground, as if listening to the earth. Around the start of the nineteenth century, two houses on the site became home to bells which would ring without visible cause.

Sir Herbert Marshall

Location: Leicester - Central Library
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Former Lord Mayor of Leicester, Sir Herbert, was said to be heard playing a piano in the library after his death, the site where he owned a piano shop in the nineteenth century. Books would occasionally fly from shelves, with the ghost of Marshall blamed.

Pools of Water

Location: Leicester - Council house on Netherhall Estate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1991
Further Comments: A family living in an unnamed council house on the estate reported mysterious pools of water which would form before quickly disappearing again. The liquid was said to be 'silky' when touched. A woman with dark hair was reportedly seen when an exorcist came to visit. It is unknown whether this report is connected to the Bell Lane haunting.

Hooded Monk

Location: Leicester - Crown & Thistle public house, Loseby Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Secret tunnels supposed to connect the pub to the cathedral and castle are reputedly haunted by a man who quickly vanishes if seen. More recently a witness reported observing a hooded monk kneeling as if in prayer, with a small posy of flowers laying on the floor, in the residential lounge above the public bar.

Black Annis lurks within a cave.

Black Annis

Location: Leicester - Dane Hills
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local monster, this old hag possessed iron claws that were used to skin children. She lived in a cave hidden somewhere amongst the hills, now thought to be buried under the city. Some believe the myth to be a continuation of Danu, an entity so old that stories no longer exist about her.

Ivy

Location: Leicester - Donisthorpe Mills, Bath Lane (as of June 2009, in process of being demolished)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1980s
Further Comments: The yard was said to be haunted by 'Ivy', a short woman who wore dark clothing, had grey hair, and whose face was covered in warts. A nightshift worker who ventured out of a quick cigarette encountered her, ensuring that he never went outside alone again.

Changing Shape

Location: Leicester - Freewheeler Club, Churchgate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1972
Further Comments: An exorcist was summoned to this building after staff reported seeing a strange ghost which would change shape.

Shadowy Figure

Location: Leicester - Friar Lane (though topographical area has changed since report)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Likely early twentieth century
Further Comments: Normally manifesting as a set of footsteps which would follow people as they walked down this road towards St Mary's church, the shadow of this ghost once appeared and revealed itself to be headless and humped to one witness.

White Woman

Location: Leicester - Graveyard in Belgrave area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This pale woman has been seen moving around the headstones.

Disconcerting Monk

Location: Leicester - Guildhall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: There are mixed opinions as to whether the library here is haunted by a grey monk or a white lady. A tormented Cavalier has been seen in the Great Hall, a phantom policeman haunts other parts of the building, a ghostly dog has been reported in the courtyard, a black cat in the Great Hall, and at least one witness claims to have been shocked to see a pair of legs manifest from the portrait of Henry Earl of Huntington hanging in the Major's Parlour. Ghost Scene Investigations and Leicester City Museums released video footage in 2006 of what appears to be a ghostly figure crawling across the floor in one room.

Edwardian Child

Location: Leicester - Haymarket Theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: This small boy has been seen several times dressed in a sailor's suit, normally during a rehearsal. Before the theatre was built, a child once drowned in a well on the land and the shade has been named as his.

Headless Horseman

Location: Loddington - Road on a steep hill in the area
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The horseman, holding his head under one arm, gallops at breakneck speed down the hill, with anyone who witnesses him doomed to suffer a family bereavement.

Lough Ness Monster

Location: Loughborough - Charnwood Water
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 23 October 2017
Further Comments: A duck was seen being pulled underwater by an unidentified creature. The attacker was christened the 'Lough Ness Monster', though is most likely a pike.

Victorian Lady

Location: Loughborough - Epinal Way
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 2000s, morning
Further Comments: A passenger in a car spotted a woman with large hair wearing a fancy Victorian dress. The figure disappeared seconds after first being seen.

Rail Worker

Location: Loughborough - Loughborough Central Station
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Holding an oil lamp, this semi-transparent figure in an old railway uniform is said to lurk on platform 1.

Papillon Hall (public domain).

Brocade Shoes

Location: Lubenham - Papillon Hall (demolished 1950)
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: The remains of a woman found within the walls of this house were speculated to belong to the Spanish mistress of David Papillon. The woman died around 1715, but declared if anyone touched her brocade shoes, misfortune would descend. In 1903, Sir Frank Bellville removed the shoes; shortly after he fell and broke his skull. The shoes were returned to the hall, although after the building's destruction, were moved to Harborough Museum.

Hooded Man in Black

Location: Lutterworth - Lane between village and Leicester (route may have changed)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Likely nineteenth century
Further Comments: Something unseen caused the horse pulling a carriage containing a father and daughter to freeze. The daughter climbed down from the carriage to investigate, only to see a hooded figure in black emerge from a hedge. The figure removed its hood to reveal a blank face. The ghostly figure vanished when the father called out his daughter's name - she jumped back into the carriage as the horse recovered and galloped away.

John Cook

Location: Lutterworth - The Springs House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1906
Further Comments: A young maid who had just started at the house awoke to see a young man in old fashioned clothing at the foot of the bed. He vanished into thin air, and the maid was so frightened by her experience that she never stayed overnight at the house again. The phantom was named as John Cook, a former resident of the house who had been murdered fifty years previous.

Headless Soldier

Location: Market Bosworth - Lanes of village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Having been decapitated in the Battle of Bosworth Field, this fighter wanders the roads and lanes looking for his missing head.

Murdered Woman

Location: Market Harborough - Angel Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The bar in the area that once housed the stables is reputedly haunted by a woman once murdered here.

Light

Location: Market Harborough - Brown's Salon
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: February 2009
Further Comments: Caught on camera by the Ghost UK team, this 'orb' appeared in the building at 20:21h. Staff have reported small items vanishing without trace, while one customer spotted two people dressed in old fashioned clothing standing by a fireplace. Although it was reported that the building was once a courthouse where criminals were hanged, a local historian provided ample evidence that this was not the case.

Captain

Location: Market Harborough - Harborough Theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2004
Further Comments: The theatre is haunted by the spirit of a sea captain. The ghost is also said to have haunted the hotel which once stood on the site before the theatre was constructed. Though the spectre itself was not seen, a team of ghost hunters detected cold spots when they investigated the site in 2004.