The Paranormal Database

Naked Corpse

Location: W1 - Argyle Rooms, Regent Street
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 26 December 1832
Further Comments: A female witness went into hysterics after she reportedly saw the naked body of a famous man, partly covered by cloth, lying on the floor. Later in the day, the man in question was discovered drowned in the Thames, wrapped around a piece of sail.

Naked Body

Location: W1 - Argyll Rooms (no longer standing), Argyll Street
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1828
Further Comments: A visitor to the playhouse was mortified to see a phantom body on the floor close to her seat. The body was mostly naked, partly covered by a cloak, and the visitor recognised the body as a friend. The following day news arrived that the friend had drowned in Southampton, around the time of the encounter.

Baker Street, London.

Glowing Dachshund

Location: W1 - Baker Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1900s
Further Comments: A pet belonging to two women, the dachshund disappeared one day, though its phantom manifested several times along the road for a period of weeks afterwards.

Footprints

Location: W1 - Baker's Street to St John's Wood, northbound tunnel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s?
Further Comments: Bill, an underground track walker, sat down for a break while patrolling the line. He reported disembodied footprints which crunched down in the ballast and appeared before him. The footsteps went straight past him and stopped ten metres from his position. When he finished his rounds, one of his colleagues said that other people had also encountered the footsteps, and they belonged to a workman killed in the area.

Nelson.

Lord Nelson

Location: W1 - Brewer Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Prior to his final battle, Nelson reportedly visited an undertaker along this road and ordered his coffin. Nelson's shade has been seen looking into a window that once belonged to the business.

London Beer Flood Victim

Location: W1 - Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twenty-first century
Further Comments: The theatre was built partly on the site where the Meux and Company Brewery stood. An accident at the brewery in 1814 released 1.5 million litres of beer that destroyed homes and killed several people. It has been reported that a teenage victim haunts the theatre and can occasionally be heard giggling.

Admiral Tryon

Location: W1 - Eaton Place, Belgravia
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: 22 June 1893
Further Comments: The solid looking form of Admiral Tryon appeared in front of several of his wife's friends at his home, at the exact moment he was going down with his ship in the Mediterranean.

Sergeant

Location: W1 - Former Vine Street Police Station
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1969
Further Comments: This officer of the law, who killed himself in a cell in the nineteenth century, keeps an eye on workers at the site.

Tobacco Tosser

Location: W1 - Fribourg & Treyer Tobacconist (no longer trading), Burlington Arcade
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1955
Further Comments: Press carried the story that the shop had acquired a poltergeist after stock was found disturbed, damaged, and thrown to the floor.

Lost Children

Location: W1 - Georgian House Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: These children make infrequent appearances, as does the ghostly figure of a man.

Lord Lyttleton encountering a ghost, from the book The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century.

Mrs Amphlett

Location: W1 - Hill Street, Mayfair
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: 24 November 1779
Further Comments: In his home along this street, Lord Lyttleton woke and saw a woman in white standing by his bed (named by some as being a Mrs Amphlett) who warned him he would be dead within three days. At 11pm on the third day, he dropped dead into his butler's arms at Pitt Place, in Epsom. The illustration is Lyttleton's encounter from the publication 'The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century'.

Suicide

Location: W1 - Hotel Piccadilly, Room 537, Denman Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: The ghost in this room was thought to have been a traveller who slit his wrists in the bathroom. Bumps and banging have woken those who have spent the night here.

Prisoners

Location: W1 - Rose and Crown public house, Old Park Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Once housed in the basement of this pub prior to hanging, the shades of those killed are still lurking here.

Faraday

Location: W1 - Royal Institution, Albemarle Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Home of the famous Christmas Lectures, Michael Faraday's spirit has been felt by several scientists while in the main lecture hall.

Actor or Highwayman?

Location: W1 - Sheppeys Restaurant, Shepherd Market
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This tall, dark stranger has often been observed standing in the shadows, his face obscured to make identification impossible, though it is speculated he is either a highwayman or a thespian.

Grey Lady

Location: W1 - St George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid to late 1960s
Further Comments: This phantom grey lady was thought to be a former nurse. While anyone could hear her footsteps echoing down corridors, she was said to only appear to the very ill, some of whom claimed to have spoken to her.

Praying Figure

Location: W1 - St Thomas' Church, Regent Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1921
Further Comments: The ghost of a previous rector has been seen several times either praying at the altar or walking down the aisle.

Kneeling Priest

Location: W1 - St Thomas's Church (no longer standing), Tenison Court
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1921
Further Comments: This phantom was observed praying before the altar, before silently moving off and vanishing.

German Officer

Location: W1 - The Langham Hotel, Room 333, Langham Place
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1973, 2014
Further Comments: BBC Workers staying in room 333 have been awoken at night to find a man dressed in uniform standing in their room - it is reportedly a German officer who killed himself by leaping from the room's window just prior to the start of World War 1. The upper floors of this building are haunted by a butler dressed smartly, carrying a tray. It has been speculated that he is not a butler, but an early radio presenter wearing a dinner jacket. The hotel hit the news again in July 2014 when tabloid newspapers reported that members of the England cricket team had experienced strange happenings.

Shelley

Location: W1 - The Serpentine, Hyde Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Post-1816
Further Comments: Harriet Westbrook Shelley drowned herself in this lake. Her ghost, as well as others who had also taken their lives in the waters, were said to occasionally walk the edge of the lake. One story has it that a ghostly hand once rose from the lake and was spotted by two women who continued to watch the apparition until it sank back into the water.

Housemaid

Location: W1 - Unidentified house in Hyde Park Place
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: June 1884
Further Comments: A lady in the house reported seeing a maid ascending the staircase, a mere two steps in front of her - the servant vanished once the guest reached the top.

Giant Black Bird

Location: W1 - Unknown house, Dean Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1860
Further Comments: Elliott O'Donnell wrote (albeit briefly) about a large, phantom black bird which appeared so frequently that the residents grew accustomed to it.

Clock

Location: W1 - Upper Gloucester Place, Portman Square
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Late nineteenth / early twentieth century
Further Comments: A house located in the square was haunted by a clock that chimed prior to a death in the family.

Double Decker Bus

Location: W10 - Between Cambridge Gardens and St Mark's Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This phantom variant of the well known large red mode of public transport was spotted several times in the 1930s, fading from view as it reached St Mark's road. When the road was altered and improved, the bus was thought to have gone, though it began to appear again in the 1990s.

Vanishing Man

Location: W10 - Chesterton Road, Ladbroke Grove
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: March 2003
Further Comments: A tourist came across a homeless man sitting along the road. As the tourist approached, the man suddenly stood, tried to speak and then ran into the middle of the road where he promptly vanished.