The Paranormal Database

Dying Highwayman

Location: Pluckley (Kent) - Fright (aka Frith) Corner
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A large spectral tree has been seen here, together with a highwayman pinned to it by several swords. On other occasions, an elderly phantom woman is spotted; thought to be a gypsy woman, she accidentally set herself on fire with her pipe while sleeping.

Hanging Highwayman

Location: Pocklington (Yorkshire) - Feathers Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This unpleasant footpad murdered a serving girl in the pub and was hanged in the yard for the crime. His shade still ensures he is not forgotten.

Tom King

Location: Rackenford (Devon) - The Stag Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: The sound of hooves heard several times from outside the public house are thought to belong to the horse of Tom King, a local highwayman who once frequented the bar.

Highwayman

Location: Romney Marsh (Kent) - Site of Gibbet
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Buried under the gibbet that housed his body for many days, the highwayman is said not to have completely left this earth. . .

William Boulter

Location: Salisbury (Wiltshire) - A30
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A highwayman by trade, Boulter was hanged for his troubles. His phantom is said to run along various parts of the A30.

Highwayman's Girlfriend

Location: Scole (Norfolk) - The Scole Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman was murdered by a jealous partner after he discovered that she was having an affair with a highwayman; the ghostly lady in white now walks the staircase and the first floor.

Highwaymen

Location: Setley (Hampshire) - Filly Inn (formally Fillie Inne)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: This inn was built where a much older inn once stood. The latter building was demolished soon after three men were arrested within for a murder and highway robbery. It is said that one of the robbers tried to repent but was hanged regardless. The entity is now said to make his presence known by throwing things around the room.

Highwayman

Location: Sheffield (Yorkshire) - Mail Coach public house, 149 West Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1984
Further Comments: Wearing the clothing of a robber, this figure was seen lurking in the shadows prior to mysteriously disappearing.

Headless on Headless

Location: Skipsea (Yorkshire) - Roads around town
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The headless highwayman seen around this area rides a headless horse. A road on a hill south of the town is haunted by a woman (who may also be headless) wearing black, who quickly vanishes just before reaching a hill.

Flagging Figure

Location: South Mimms (Hertfordshire) - Unnamed road in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Spring 1935
Further Comments: Several motorists (and a vicar on his bike) encountered a figure who stood on the roadside flagging down travellers, only to vanish seconds later. More generally, the roads in the area where once said to be haunted by the ghost of Dick Turpin.

A phantom woman on horseback dashes through trees.

Sobbing

Location: St Albans (Hertfordshire) - Wicked Lady public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The sound of a lady's gentle sobs has been heard diffusing through the fabric of the pub. The common outside the pub is home to a highway woman on horseback, after whom the building is named.

Murdered Landlord

Location: Steeple Aston (Oxfordshire) - Hopcroft's Holt Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The shade seen here is thought to be a former landlord murdered on the site, along with his wife. Another story has the highwayman Claude Duval as haunting the site.

Turpin

Location: Stilton (Cambridgeshire) - Bell Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: It was once believed that the ghost of Dick Turpin passed by this inn on Wednesday nights - the thud of horse's hooves could be heard, and some people reported seeing a man on horseback just outside of the building.

Highwayman

Location: Stratton Strawless (Norfolk) - Shortthorn Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: A ghostly highwayman was observed by one person at a site along this road.

Highwayman

Location: Stretton Baskerville (Warwickshire) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: A highwayman, some say Dick Turpin himself, hid some of his takings in this deserted medieval village. He died before managing to retrieve the money, and now he rides towards the village on horseback.

Syderstone Village Common.

Highwayman with Horse

Location: Syderstone (Norfolk) - Village Common
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Appearing under the light of the full moon, the ghostly highwayman on horseback is reported to say, 'Your money or your life', and other such cliche expressions.

John Alcock

Location: Temple Grafton (Warwickshire) - Alcocks Arbour (aka Rolls Wood Hill), Croft Lane
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Present
Further Comments: Highwayman John Alcock stashed much of his ill-gotten gains in a cave under this hill, in a chest protected by three locks and guarded by a cockerel. The bird will only let treasure hunters pass if they possessed one of Alcock's bones. Another legend says the Devil created the hill; out picking nuts on Devil's Nutting Day (21 September), Old Nick stumbled across the Virgin Mary who ordered him to drop the nuts. The Devil did, thus creating the hill.

Swift Nick

Location: Tilbury (Essex) - The World's End inn
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: 1980s
Further Comments: An old highwayman, Swift Nick has a habit of relighting fires which have gone out hours beforehand.

Highwayman

Location: Todwick (Yorkshire) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom highwayman has been sighted in this village.

Actor or Highwayman?

Location: W1 (Greater London) - 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.

Jack Diamond

Location: West Peckham (Kent) - Diamond's Cottage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Friday 13, 06.30h (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Jack Diamond was a highwayman - his ghost, and maybe those of others, have been seen here on the unluckiest dates in the calendar.

Gladys Saxton

Location: Wigglesworth (Yorkshire) - Plough Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1945 onwards
Further Comments: Gladys Saxton and her maid Margaret Harrison were killed in a fire at the building in 1945. Since that date, a woman wearing a long black dress has been seen by guests at the building. There is also a report of a phantom highwayman being spotted standing in a doorway.

Hiding Highwayman

Location: Winchelsea (Sussex) - Winchelsea Church, monastery ruins
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Said to have been seen hiding in the trees around the ruins, the highwayman's target can occasionally be heard galloping up the nearby road. A black soldier in a red uniform has also been reported from the churchyard, and a phantom monk has been observed moving above the ground on nearby private land.

The ghost of Dick Turpin.

Turpin

Location: Woughton on the Green (has also mistakenly been called 'Wroughton') (Buckinghamshire) - Bury Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghost of a highwayman, thought to be Dick Turpin, haunts the Bury Lane approach towards the Old Swan Inn that once acted as one of his many hideouts.

Turpin

Location: Wroughton on the Green (Buckinghamshire) - Road through the village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This figure wearing a tricorn hat appears to be pacing along the roadside, as if waiting for someone to join him.