The Paranormal Database

None Can Leave

Location: Glashakinleen (County Cork) - Unknown field in the area containing a fort
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: This field was said to have been cursed, so if entered after dark it would be impossible to leave before dawn. Strange lights would also be reported dancing around the trees and bushes.

Cursed Land

Location: Whitchurch (Berkshire) - Unidentified barrows
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Nineteenth / early twentieth century
Further Comments: Earthworks upon which a castle was once believed to have stood were said to be cursed and could never be levelled. The current state of the barrows is unknown.

Nell Gwynne.

Nell

Location: St Albans (Hertfordshire) - Salisbury Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late ninetieth century
Further Comments: Witnessed by Winston Churchill's stepfather, the ghost of Nell Gwynne was seen in the dining room, wearing blue clothing. A cavalier is also reported to haunt the upper parts of the building, where he took his own life rather than fall into the hands of his Roundhead opponents.

Blinded

Location: St John (Jersey) - Lavoir des Dames
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The fairies which were believed to bathe here would strike anyone blind who spotted them. The area is also said to be home to spooky noises, although the source is unknown.

Angry Little Men

Location: Hoy (Orkney) - Cliff top at Torness
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 1940s
Further Comments: Seen by a witness, these figures were throwing themselves off the cliff edge in a mad dance. The witness said that these small men looked 'primitive' with long dark hair.

Swinging Equipment

Location: Inchcape (Angus) - Bell Rock Lighthouse
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1968?
Further Comments: Lighthouse men entering a room containing equipment hanging from the ceiling would find a single item swinging, with everything else motionless. With no rational explanation, a ghost was blamed.

Reversed Gravity

Location: Epping (Essex) - Hangman's Hill (sideroad between Avey Lane and Pynest Green Lane)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: It is said that releasing your car handbrake at the bottom of the hill will result in the vehicle rolling to the top, stopping at the site of an old gallows. Although an optical illusion, folklore says that the activity is caused by either anti-gravity or the ghost of a hangman.

Doppelganger of Mother

Location: Epping (Essex) - Unidentified house
Type: Manifestation of the Living
Date / Time: 1967 / 1969
Further Comments: Twice a woman in white had appeared, witnesses mistaking the figure for Mrs Punter (the owner of the house), though she had been in other places at the time.

Headless Man

Location: Outer London: Hounslow (Greater London) - Two unidentified cottages
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: March 1948
Further Comments: Police were called after a headless man sat on a bed, scaring a nearby dog.

Suicide

Location: WC2 (Greater London) - Aldine House, Maiden Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1972
Further Comments: The owners of the building reported hearing strange banging and scraping from the floor above them - the sounds were attributed to the ghost of a man who had committed suicide there a few years previous.

Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London.

Violet Melnotte

Location: WC2 (Greater London) - Duke of York's Theatre, St Martin's Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1967 (Violet), 04 May 1948 (jacket)
Further Comments: The builder of the theatre, Violet was known to watch the performances from her own personal box. After her death in 1935, a presence could be heard from within her seating area, and her phantom spotted in the green room in 1967. A door was said to have been heard to often slam, surprising as it has been bricked up for many decades. During the 1940s, Thora Hird complained that a Victorian jacket she wore during performances gave her a choking feeling. The manager held a seance on stage, during which mediums claimed the jacket had been worn by a lady named Edith Meryweather who had been strangled by a man.

Cloudy Figure in Red

Location: SW1 (Greater London) - St James's Park, Birdcage Walk & Cockpit Steps
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1972?
Further Comments: This entity, misty but apparently dressed in clothing with red stripes, was thought to be the wife of an officer murdered by her husband; he cut up her remains and was trying to dispose of them in the park when caught. Two soldiers encountered the entity in 1802, which left them too scared to return to duty, while in 1972 a motorist hit a lamppost on the roadside as he tried to avoid a misty figure dressed in red (another source has claimed the accident occurred in the 1960s).

Pig-Faced Woman

Location: SW3 (Greater London) - House in Markham Square
Type: Other
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: This phantom woman was said to be completely naked, bathed in light which emanated from her, and as having the face of a pig. A few years later, the author of the story changed the account slightly, claiming the ghost wore white and the animal face a result of the woman wearing a fancy dress mask when she died.

Coughing

Location: SW3 (Greater London) - Paulton Square
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: In a 1936 article, Elliott O'Donnell mentions a 'coughing ghost' which haunted the square.

Little Old Man

Location: SW3? (Greater London) - Unidentified studio, King's Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: The appearance of a phantom small old man peering over a gallery balustrade caused a model to faint.

Fred

Location: Hartley Wintney (Hampshire) - House near playing fields
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1976-1980
Further Comments: This entity would rattle cups, pull up carpets, and tear down curtains. Nicknamed Fred by the youngest child in the house, she was also the only member of the family to claim to have seen the entity, which she described as tall, thin, and dressed in black.

Door Locker

Location: Hurst Point (Hampshire) - Lighthouse
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: May 1997
Further Comments: The finger of blame pointed at a ghost when modernisation work suffered disruption. A door was bolted from the inside, and after removal of the bolt, a scaffolding tower was moved to block entry. One worker found his radio would be drained of its batteries in the morning and the volume turned up to maximum.

Headless Black Shape

Location: Edinburgh (Lothian) - Lasswade Road, Liberton
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1897
Further Comments: Described as a strange black creature without a head, at least four witnesses watched the entity silently cross the road at night before it vanished.

Isabel Heriot

Location: Ormiston (Lothian) - Manse
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A servant at the local manse, the family dismissed Isebel for being insolent. With nowhere else to go, Isabel loitered near the gates to the house until winter came and she died of exposure. Soon after her death, stones and other objects were thrown around the site where she had worked, and loud noises awoke the family at night. Isabel's ghost appeared in the garden. After several months, the activity ceased.

Headless Figure

Location: Middlesbrough (North Yorkshire) - Close to Eston Sanatorium (demolished 1929) and Cemetery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December 1906
Further Comments: A headless ghost began haunting the area, rising out of the ground at midnight on the same spot before moving around and silently vanishing. One newspaper described witnesses to the headless ghost as 'Christmassy'.

Hannah Grundy

Location: Staithes (North Yorkshire) - Boulby Cliff
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 24 December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: This young woman was killed in April 1807 when the cliff path gave way, a large, heavy rock landing on her head or neck. Her headless shade still walks the path as it once was, several metres out from the current one. Another version of the tale says the entity crosses a bridge over a brook near the beach on Christmas Eve.

Headless Dog

Location: Swaledale (North Yorkshire) - Humpback bridge leading to Ivelet
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The appearance of this headless hound denoted a forthcoming tragedy.

Woman in White

Location: Mansfield (Nottinghamshire) - A60 and area around Hall Place (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1950s onwards
Further Comments: This phantom woman in a white dress is thought to have once haunted Hall Place before it burnt down - her ghost has now migrated to the nearby road. Another ghostly woman is said to haunt the A60; murdered in 1817, Elizabeth Sheppard is now said to be a vanishing hitchhiker.

Ringing

Location: Kingston (Sussex) - Off coast
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The bells of a church lost to the sea many years ago can be heard ringing at low tide.

Sir Robert Pye

Location: Faringdon (Wiltshire) - Between churchyard and Farington House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Headless, the spirit of Pye moves around the north side of the churchyard and/or walking the lawn between house and church.

Skull's Owner

Location: Montgomery (Powys) - Lymore Hall (demolished 1931)
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A skull was kept on display in the hall until one night a resident watched a headless figure enter, pick up and place the skull on its neck, and then disappear into a pool near the hall. When the pool was drained in the late nineteenth century, a skull was recovered, along with a piece of Cromwellian armour.

Typing

Location: Leicester (Leicestershire) - Office building, New Walk
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2004/5
Further Comments: Many poltergeist-related events took place in this building, including disembodied footsteps, light fittings falling and shattering, alarm sensors triggering, sounds of typing and a blood-curdling scream. Nothing was ever seen, and the events occurred for around a year before ceasing.

Marbury Lady

Location: Comberbatch (Cheshire) - Marbury Park and former hall (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Exact date unknown, but reported to be around 22:30h (female ghost)
Further Comments: An Egyptian maid was pushed down the staircase of the old manor house, dying in the fall. Her ghost was said to haunt the old hall, though when it was demolished, the spirit changed location and took up residence in the park. A phantom mare named Marbury Dunne is also said to haunt the park. The lady featured in the press in 1978 after a 'ghost' spotted by a driver transpired to be a dummy.

Tall Woman

Location: Somersal Herbert (Derbyshire) - Somersal Herbert Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: The tall white lady which haunts the property was caught on camera in the late twentieth century, the image apparently showing the entity wearing a wimple. A phantom smell of bacon also haunted the kitchen.

Voices

Location: Ratoath (County Meath) - Unidentified cottage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1980s?
Further Comments: Christy Dignam claimed his home to be haunted. One guest heard loud voices in the kitchen but found the room to be empty, while his wife Kathryn spotted an old man in their bedroom.

The Palace of Westminster, London.

Mrs Milman

Location: SW1 (Greater London) - Palace of Westminster
Type: Manifestation of the Living
Date / Time: 1899 (Milman), pre-1901 (MP), 1989 (other)
Further Comments: A ghost seen around the palace was identified as (the still living) Mrs Milman, and although she worked at the site as Assistant Clerk, she was not present at the time of the sightings. In a contemporary newspaper report, Milman said that she would be spotted in places where she was not present. Around the same time, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and other MPs witnessed a colleague sitting in the House of Commons chamber, even though they knew the colleague to be seriously ill at home. In 1989, a lift operator claimed an unseen force picked him up and tossed him fifteen feet along a corridor. More recently, senior aide Jo-Anne Crowder claimed during her time at Westminster she had felt a phantom dog nuzzle up to her, and she had also seen the reflection of an unknown grey lady in glass.

Woman with Child

Location: Seaton Delaval (Northumberland) - Seaton Delaval Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1954 (reflection), 1966 (woman), others unknown
Further Comments: Her husband failing to return from battle, this woman forever keeps watch from a chapel window in the hope he one day comes home. There are additional reports of phantom music and the pacing sound of women's heels. In 1954, owner Mrs Astley claimed to have seen a spectral lady-shape reflected in a window, and twelve years later a phantom white lady appeared the night before the unveiling of a new floral display.

Fleeing Sheep

Location: Across Oxfordshire (Oxfordshire) - Two hundred square miles of farmland
Type: Other
Date / Time: 03 November 1888, 20:00h
Further Comments: For an unknown reason, thousands of sheep across two hundred square miles of Oxfordshire broke free and fled their fields and pens. Many were rounded up and collected the following morning, having run miles from their homes.

White Lady

Location: Ellesmere (Shropshire) - Oteley Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre 1833?
Further Comments: Folklore placed the spirit of a white woman within a house chimney on Oteley Park. She originally haunted the house which stood here and was said to wake the occupants. Another version of the tale places the woman on the banks of the Mere, shouting at people to stop using her water.

Agnew Lady

Location: Kilwaughter (County Antrim) - Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom white lady, a member of the Agnew family who died three centuries ago, would manifest on the battlements or the tower. A well on the grounds of the castle had magical properties; if the drawn water bubbled, then good fortune would follow, but if the water were still, a family member would soon die.

White Lady

Location: Larne (County Antrim) - Redhall House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A news report from 1968 mentions villagers were aware that a white lady haunted the house. Scouts camping in the ground watched the ghost cross a field, pass through a gate, and vanish into trees.

Suited Figure

Location: Chesterfield (Derbyshire) - Private residence, Somersal area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2014
Further Comments: A witness watched a large figure with a suit jacket and top hat walk through their garage door.

Lady Jane Coke

Location: Longford (Derbyshire) - Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former resident of the hall who returned in the form of a white lady, a story told in the early twentieth century says she searched for a finger she had lost from her left hand.

Black Monk

Location: Caldey Island (Dyfed) - Priory and all over Island
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1920s, though no sightings since 1929
Further Comments: Standing taller than six feet, the monk dressed in black was said to rise from the graveyard at the old priory before drifting off. Though reported on the land immediately around the priory, some islanders encountered him further away, in their homes or on the roads. The ghosts of a white lady and of a 'madman' were also said to haunt the island at some point in the dim and distant past, as was a phantom headless lamb. Finally, buried treasure is supposed to be hidden somewhere in the area, the location marked with a luminous glow.

Sophia's Stone

Location: Camelon (Falkirk) - Cemetery
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Unknown if still present
Further Comments: Before dying, Sophia requested that her body be returned home to the Caribbean. She was instead buried in the local cemetery. Before long, her headstone fell over, and continued to do so when re-erected. Groundkeepers noticed whoever replaced the headstone would suffer a minor accident, so in the end, the stone was left fallen.

Attic Accident

Location: Falkirk (Falkirk) - Callendar House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1940s?
Further Comments: A variation on the Mistletoe Bough, a story based here says young people attending a wedding played hide and seek, with one girl finding an oak chest in the attic. The chest locked itself as she hid inside, and when she was discovered four days later, the girl had died. Her ghost took the form of a white lady, and may have been seen by Polish soldiers on the site during the Second World War.

Vanishing Man

Location: Falkirk (Falkirk) - Windsor Unit (now demolished), Falkirk & District Royal Infirmary
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Nurses on the top floor heading toward the lifts watched an old man enter one and the doors begin to close. A nurse ran and managed to press the lift button before the doors could fully close, but the man had vanished.

White Lady

Location: East Wemyss (Fife) - Caves and the surrounding area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The phantom white lady who haunts the caves is thought to be the same entity which haunts the castle. In life, Mary Sibbald is said to have run away from her father's castle and lived with travellers who spent the winter in the caves.

White Lady

Location: Outer London: Greenford (Greater London) - Litten Tree public house (demolished circa 2009)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former set of three cottages before its conversion, the pub was home to a ghostly white lady.

White Lady

Location: Outer London: Uxbridge (Greater London) - Military base, No 1 Gate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1940
Further Comments: In January 1940, Rifleman Gilbert accidently shot and killed Rifleman Anderson while on guard duty. Although their weapons should have been unloaded, both soldiers placed rounds in their rifles after talking about the local ghost (a white lady) and what they would do if they spotted her.

William Weare

Location: Radlett (Hertfordshire) - Gills Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Site of a notorious 1823 murder, the victim William Weare and his two killers were once believed to haunt the area of the crime.

Praying Man

Location: South Mimms (Hertfordshire) - Church and vicarage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1920s (praying man)
Further Comments: A man seen praying in the church stood up and walked through a closed door leading to the vestry. The Reverend Allen Hay also reported that he would often wake at 3am and felt a presence in the vicarage, though he was convinced the ghost was friendly. Another story claimed the churchyard to be haunted by a white lady.

Turpin

Location: South Mimms (Hertfordshire) - Wash Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late 19 / early 20 century (Turpin), 1930s (shadow)
Further Comments: The ghost of Dick Turpin was said to haunt this lane. In the 1930s, Elliott O'Donnell visited the site and claimed to have been stalked by a shadow which maintained a constant distance from him as he walked. A local man told O'Donnell that the shadow was not Turpin, but rather related to a witch who had been murdered and buried in the area.

White Lady

Location: Nigg (Highland) - Dayfield House (?)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: When the future of this house was being discussed in 1972, one suggestion was converting it into a country club called 'The White Lady', named after its ghost.

White Lady

Location: Haddington (Lothian) - Mailandfield Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This phantom white lady reportedly haunted the staircase.