The Paranormal Database

Anne Boleyn

Location: Blickling (Norfolk) - Blickling Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 19 May (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: To mark the anniversary of her death, a coach pulled by four headless horses pulls up on the driveway, with a decapitated Anne on a seat, her head in her lap. After Anne's headless white ghost arrives, it is said then to climb out, before inspecting each room of the Hall (the place of her birth and childhood). On the same date, Sir Thomas Boleyn is said to drive a team of headless horses in this area, cursed to cross twelve Norfolk bridges (including those at Aylsham, Coltishall and Wroxham).

Duelling Knights with Fiery Swords

Location: Blofield (Norfolk) - Path leading from Blofield church to St Michael's at Braydeston
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Returning to this realm once a year, the knights are said to be Sir Thomas Boleyn (father of Anne) and Sir Thomas Paston. Their shades battle with burning swords, and Lady Anne watches from a nearby carriage, pulled by headless horses.

Anne Boleyn, Holbein sketch.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Boreham (Essex) - New Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: One of the places she frequented while still in favour with her husband, Anne Boleyn is still alleged to walk the corridors of the building.

St Peter ad Vincula church within the Tower of London.

Procession

Location: EC3 (Greater London) - Tower of London, St Peter ad Vincula church
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late nineteenth century?
Further Comments: The bodies of the executed were placed under the floor of this building during the Tutor period. In 1876, Queen Victoria instructed the flagstones be lifted and all bodies removed, identified, and given a correct burial - the remains over two hundred were discovered, though identification was nigh impossible. Soon after this, an officer on patrol reported looking into the church late at night and seeing many people in period costume apparently walking around, following a woman who looked like Anne Boleyn. After a few minutes, the scene faded away.

Margaret's Execution

Location: EC3 (Greater London) - Tower of London, Tower Green
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 27 May (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Refusing to kneel before the axeman, Margaret Pole was chased around the area and hacked to death by him instead. This horrid scene has been witnessed several times, as have the spirits of Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey.

An old postcard of Hampton Court Palace.

Henry's Wives

Location: Hampton Court (Surrey) - Hampton Court Palace
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Varies: 12 October (reoccurring), 4 November (reoccurring), and other (see text)
Further Comments: Jane Seymour returns every 12 October (the date she gave birth to her son), while Anne Boleyn, dressed in blue, is said to walk the passageways of the palace. A silently screaming Catherine Howard has been watched moving towards the chapel (on 4 November), where she begged Henry VIII to save her life. Howard's disembodied hand was spotted and sketched by an artist working in Guard Watching Chamber in 1900. A photograph taken in December 2003 reportedly showing a ghostly hooded figure opening a fire escape has been dismissed as a hoax. In 1989 a figure spotted wearing a Victorian nightshirt vanished in front of a witness.

Footsteps

Location: Hawkwell (Essex) - Clements Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: This ghost is said to have been so friendly that the family dog would run up to the sounds wagging its tail. Another tale states that the ghost of Anne Boleyn has been seen without her head walking the corridors of the house.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Hever (Kent) - Bridge over the Eden
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 24 December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Boleyn's spirit crosses the bridge once a year. The area is also haunted by a farmer, robbed and murdered nearby.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Leigh-on-Sea (Essex) - Bellhouse public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former hunting lodge, local legend says Boleyn occasionally returns as she favoured the site.

A portrait of Anne Boleyn, also thought to haunt this site.

Jane Seymour

Location: Owslebury (Hampshire) - Marwell Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The Seymour family once owned this property, and Jane is thought to haunt the surrounding grounds. The shade of Anne Boleyn has also been reported loitering near a row of nearby yew trees. Finally, the hall is reputedly the location where the Mistletoe Bough bride story originated, with the chest still (?) being present today.

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.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Salle (Norfolk) - Salle Church
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The former queen sometimes returns to this church, where local legend says she was laid to rest after her body was clandestinely removed from the Tower of London.

Lambeth Palace and the River Thames, London.

Anne Boleyn

Location: SE1 (Greater London) - Lambeth Palace, & River Thames near the building
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Carried in a Thames barge crewed by faded grey figures, the shade of Boleyn is taken to the Tower of London where she met her maker. The palace itself sometimes echoes with Anne's voice, pleading and crying for her life to be saved.

Anne Boleyn

Location: WC2 (Greater London) - Durham House (no longer standing) Durham House Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This building held Anne during her last days, and while the house no longer stands, its basement remains, and it is here the ghost still resides.

Coach and Horses

Location: Wickford (Essex) - Runwell Hall (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 31 December (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: After a spectral horse and carriage stops at the top of the driveway, a woman climbs out and walks to the hall's door to be met by a long dead butler. A similar story says that Anne Boleyn travels in a coach along the roads surrounding the Hall around the same time of year.

Anne Boleyn's head and an axe, from a 1738 engraving by J Houbraken.

Anne Boleyn

Location: Wilmslow (Cheshire) - Bollin Hall (demolished nineteenth century, likely a railway viaduct now stands on the site)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: It was claimed that the hall was both the birthplace of Anne Boleyn and where her ghost returned.

The Principal's House, York.

Lady in Green

Location: York (Yorkshire) - Principal's House and the King's Manor, Exhibition Square
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The female ghost which haunts the Principal's House is said to be either Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard, dressed in a green dress and carrying roses. The ghost of a monk frequents the King's Manor. The sounds of wounded men can sometimes be heard here - the building was used as a makeshift hospital during the Civil War.