The Paranormal Database

Young Girl

Location: York - 18-20 Stonegate (currently Jack Wills)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local report says that a teenage girl using the changing room looked in the mirror and spotted another young girl. Believing that the girl had accidently walked into the changing room, the teenager turned and asked the girl to leave. The girl turned and walked through the wall. Staff later found out that a doorway once existed in the wall where the girl disappeared.

A building along Stonegate, York.

Young Girl

Location: York - 41 Stonegate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A six-year-old Victorian girl who fell to her death on the staircase was said to have haunted this building during the twentieth century. The girl could be heard ascending the staircase and was reputedly seen sitting upon a shop counter when a tearoom operated on the site. One story says the ghost is a doctor's daughter and dates to when the building was a private residence. During one of the doctor's dinner parties, the curious girl emerged from her top floor bedroom and tried to peer over the banister to see who was in attendance. She lost her balance.

Number 5 College Street, York.

Crying Girl

Location: York - 5 College Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: During one of the outbreaks of plague in the city, a married couple contracted the disease and died. Their only child, a young daughter, remained uninfected. She shouted to passersby for help, but no one would believe that she was clear of the disease; the doorway was bricked up to prevent the plague from spreading, with the young girl and her dead parents still inside. The girl's crying could be heard for days, until the house grew quiet - the girl had eventually starved to death. Now she can be seen looking from the window, and the cries of a young girl heard emerging from the building, even though it is empty.

Woman with Child

Location: York - A64 Malton Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather Dependent: Misty evenings
Further Comments: This tragic figure, possibly murdered by her highwayman boyfriend, now appears on misty or foggy evenings.

All Saint's Church, York.

Glowing Girl

Location: York - All Saint's Church, Pavement
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This pale young lass with long curly hair was seen a few times, always observing funerals from the church door. She vanished suddenly if anyone approached. Another description of the entry says she is dressed in black with a swollen red face.

Headless Woman

Location: York - Area of Bishopthorpe
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Eighteenth century
Further Comments: A wealthy woman was murdered for her money, and her body hidden a short distance from her house in Bishopthorpe. It was several days before the corpse was discovered, and it is said that the state of decay was so bad that her head had become separate from her torso. Her headless ghost haunted the area where her body lay for years after the event.

Bedern Arch, York.

Child's Hand

Location: York - Bedern Arch
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The story goes that several orphans died in the nearby Industrial Ragged School during the mid-nineteenth century, due to the negligence of the alcoholic schoolmaster; now, on cold nights, people have reported walking by the arch only to feel a small child take them by the hand... Childish giggling and terrible screaming has also been reported.

Black Swan Inn, York.

Legs

Location: York - Black Swan Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Seen descending a staircase in the building, only the lower part of this male body appears. Two other spirits can be found in the bar area; that of a workman wearing a bowler hat (dressed in Victorian clothing) and a lady in a white dress who watches the fireplace.

Grey Lady

Location: York - Castlegate House (or Lodge)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This shadowy feminine figure has been seen on the staircase of the building.

Church of the Holy Trinity, York.

Two Ladies and a Child

Location: York - Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late nineteenth century onwards (?) at morning service
Further Comments: These three figures are reported to be a mother, her child, and a nanny - the story is that mother and child were buried many miles apart, and now the nanny reunites the child with mother. Another story says that the women have no connection; the mother and child were united in death after the infant died of plague, and she slowly pined away, while the second woman is an abbess murdered trying to prevent Henry VIII's men from storming her church.

The Davygate area of York.

Clash of Armies

Location: York - Church Street & Davygate area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1958
Further Comments: Two women walking in the area claimed to have seen a large battle taking place around them, between Roman troops and barbarians. As a van drove by, the scene vanished.

Clifford Tower, York.

Blood of the Jews

Location: York - Clifford Tower
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Blood unknown, paper in March 1686 or 1687
Further Comments: Many Jews committed suicide in the tower rather than surrender to the rioting anti-Semitic mobs tearing up the town. The ground of the tower is said to be stained red, even after being dug up and replaced. Sir John Reresby wrote that one of his men on watch at the tower observed a piece of paper blowing in the wind that changed into a monkey before transforming into a turkey-cock. The entity wandered around for a bit before vanishing.

Serving Girl

Location: York - Clifton Lodge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This building is said to be haunted by the ghost of a servant who killed her child who had been born outside of wedlock.

Cock and Bottle Inn, York.

Man with Big Nose

Location: York - Cock and Bottle Inn, Skeldergate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Thought to be the Royalist and alchemist George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, this ghostly figure, with black wavy hair and a large nose, has been spotted in the public house. The building was built on the top of a site once owned by Villiers, which would explain his reluctance to leave.

Coppergate, York.

Fire Alarm Starter

Location: York - Coppergate shops, those built on site of old Craven's Sweet factory (includes the Bodyshop)
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This entity was known to cause trouble when the factory stood. In more recent years, it has been blamed for setting off the fire alarms in these buildings.

Coinage

Location: York - Dance school attached to St Mary's Church, Bishop Hill Junior
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The sounds of coins being poured onto a table and into a metal box have been reported coming from this building.

Dean Court Hotel, York.

Roman Soldier

Location: York - Dean Court Hotel, Duncombe Place
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Reported to walk around the hotel, this phantom may have also been spotted by a trio of guests in their bathroom mirror.

The old Debtors Prison in York.

Mary Bateman

Location: York - Debtors Prison
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghost of Mary Bateman would appear during the witching hour and could have been the entity that became well known for playing pranks on prisoners.

Lady

Location: York - Drake's Fish and Chip Restaurant
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: April 2021
Further Comments: A phantom woman was reported to haunt the third floor of this building. The local press reported that the ghost was consulted when redevelopment work was carried out on the site in 2021.

Human Shape

Location: York - Dun Cow public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 31 August 1977
Further Comments: While on honeymoon, a woman awoke to see the shape of a tall person by the window. The shape appeared to be made up of small pulsating balls of light. The figure suddenly disappeared.

Phantom Hand

Location: York - Earl Grey Tea Rooms, Shambles
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: July 2016
Further Comments: One visitor reported on Trip Advisor that they had felt a child's hand grab them while in the lady's toilet, although nothing was there. Another story says a phantom older man sits at a corner table.

The River Ouse running through York.

Pale Figure

Location: York - Edge of the River Ouse
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 01 May (reoccurring) (legend), ghost unknown
Further Comments: Thought to be the shade of a drowned person, this figure drifts around the banks of the river. Another piece of folklore says that a person drops five white pebbles into the river when the Minster clock chimes one in the morning during the first of May, they see their past, present and future.

First Hussar pub, York.

Caped Man

Location: York - First Hussar public house, North Street
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A small team of men working through the night to complete a painting and decorating job all reported seeing a ghostly man dressed in a cape, who vanished through a wall.

Five Lions pub, York.

Green Jenny

Location: York - Five Lions public house (now Watergate Inn)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: This figure has not been seen for many years, and her history is all but forgotten.

Walking

Location: York - Fordington Lodge, outside of the city
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Haunted by an unknown entity, the sounds of footsteps were often heard crossing the living room floor. Doors sometimes opened themselves, and once a sofa moved itself away from the wall, before moving back a few seconds later.