The UK's Most Haunted!

The UK's Most Haunted...

Always wanted to see a phantom in the 'flesh'? We have picked some of the best witness report spots. You may be pleased to know that a lot of them are in pubs ...

Organisation	Number of complaints about ghosts	Contacted exorcist/spiritual medium?	Consider transferring tenants?
Mid Devon Council	2	no	no
Wales and West Housing	1	yes	yes
Bromsgrove District & Redditch Borough Councils	1	yes	no
Hounslow Homes	3	no	no
Broxtowe Council	2	no	no
Circle Group	1	yes	yes
North Hertfordshire Homes	1	no	no
Fareham Council	1	yes	no
Sheffield Council	47	no	no
Six Town Housing	2	no	no
Gentoo	4	yes	no
Whitefriars	2	yes	yes
One Housing	0	no	no
Thames Valley Housing	1	yes	no
Curo	2	yes	yes
Home Group	2	yes	no
Contour	0	no	no
Bromford	0	no	no
Sovereign	0	no	no
Greenfields Community Housing	0	no	no
Orbit	0	no	yes
Trafford Housing Trust	0	no	yes
Taunton Dean	1	no	no
Lambeth	0	no	no
Total	73	9	6

Nick’s paranormal encounter at the North Hertfordshire Homes office....

Nick’s paranormal encounter at the North Hertfordshire Homes office......

Not only do most organisations treat the paranormal with an open mind, but several even report ghostly goings on at their own buildings. Lambeth says that Lambeth Town Hall is allegedly haunted, while according to local folk law, One Housing Group’s Arlington centre, in Camden which is a combination of accommodation for homeless people, local facilities and a conference centre, is also haunted.

Circle Group and North Hertfordshire Homes even have offices which staff claim are haunted.

Indeed, this very piece is being written from a housing association’s haunted meeting room. Specifically, I am sitting in the Salisbury room of North Hertfordshire Homes Georgian office in Baldock. The office – previously the home of Mary Graves, the mistress of Lord Salisbury – was been long-rumoured to be haunted before North Hertfordshire Homes moved into the refurbished property in 2005. However, some years ago, local medium John Aitkin visited the property and said he sensed four ghostly presences. These were an 18 year old serving girl called Elisabeth, a house keeper called Isobel, a small child called William and Mary Graves herself.

Curious staff have since held a sleep in, and occasionally reporting ‘weird sensations’ and witnessing the image of a woman by the window. As a result, one colleague has even moved desks. Mostly, though, talk of ghosts provokes jovial skepticism.

Typing alone at the board table, the wind howls outside causing the windows fidget against the shutters, and brittle Autumn leaves to tinker against the aging panes. There are no visions, flying objects, changes of temperature or strange presences. It is actually quite cosy. But nonetheless, it is easy to see how the building, with its alcoves, cellars and staircases could set the mind racing alone at night.

Indeed, the cleaners, who occupy the building alone at night were the first to report things going bump in the night. Steve Foulds, building technician at North Hertfordshire Homes, shows me the cleaners’ log of complains which reveals over series of dates in September 2006 ‘a chair spun round twice’, ‘the apparition of a young girl who smiled and then vanished’, hoovers turned off and on and the disabled toilet locking itself.

‘I thought they were real characters [a husband and wife cleaning duo],’ recalls Mr Foulds. ‘They were certainly very sincere in their belief that is what they saw – and sometimes I bump into them in the street and they ask if there have been further instances. Personally, I think it is a very warm, welcoming place to work.’

The Number Of Haunted House Is Rising!

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, you’re probably going to call your landlord about it. But how do social landlords deal with reports of things that go bump in the night? Nick Duxbury investigates… cautiously!

Do you believe in ghosts? While you mull this question, let me tell you a ghost story.

It starts with a family contacting a local authority because their 14-year-old daughter’s bedroom seemed cold and strange noises were heard in the room. The daughter was so scared by what she was hearing that she started to sleep on the floor in her parents’ room. The stress of the experience mounted to the point that two members of the family were prescribed tranquillisers and developed stress-related psoriasis.

A priest had visited the home in Fareham and confirmed he could feel a presence in the house - in particular, in the girl’s bedroom. The priest carried out an exorcism but the family did not feel it had helped. The teenage daughter was so terrified she was on the verge of moving in with her grandparents. Support was provided from the family doctor and the council housing department even agreed to help the family with a priority move if it would help. Fortunately the family found another tenant to swap homes with and were able to move out within a few weeks. The family that moved into the property has not reported any problems.

Though all hallows’ eve may have just passed, this story is not a Halloween wind-up. It is taken from a log entry from the tenancy service department of Fareham Council, in Hampshire, obtained by Inside Housing under the Freedom of Information Act. It is also not a one-off. FOI requests to all councils in England and a survey of 100 housing associations reveal many more.

Sheffield Council alone has experienced an astonishing 47 separate, unrelated reports of ghosts or hauntings in its homes since 2003. Broxtowe Council has received two reports of hauntings in its properties over the past decade; phone logs reveal that just last year a tenant complained he had been experiencing ‘paranormal activity’ at his property, where boxes had been ‘flying around the room’.

Similarly, Bromsgrove District and Redditch Borough Council had a property exorcised in January 2007 after a mother believed her child had been possessed. And the list goes on. Mid Devon Council has received two reports of hauntings, arm’s-length management organisation Hounslow Homes has received three, Whitefriars Housing Association has had two, and Six Town Housing has also had two. There are more: in fact, Inside Housing has uncovered 73 separate instances in which tenants have claimed their homes are haunted (see table below). The scary part? These reports come from just 16 social landlords. Three organisations even reported that their own offices and buildings are allegedly haunted. (see box below for Nick’s encounter)

No protocol
The true scale of alleged hauntings in social housing is likely to be far larger. Responding to the FOI requests for information on hauntings, the vast majority of councils said the information was not available because either it had not been recorded, or there was no relevant complaint category in their computer systems. Others cited data protection of tenants’ personal details and the prohibitive costs involved in finding the information. As a result, just eight councils and arm’s-length management organisations produce details of haunting-related complaints. Similarly, of the 100 associations surveyed, just 15 responded - eight of which had received reports of paranormal activity.

It is likely then, that tenant complaints about paranormal activity are in fact widespread across the hundreds of councils unable to produce data, the 85 associations that declined to respond to the survey, and the hundreds of others that were not asked. So, with this in mind, are landlords dismissing these complaints off-hand, or choosing to entertain the existence of ghosts?

As it turns out, councils and housing associations have dealt with these complaints very  eriously indeed. Inside Housing’s investigation reveals that social landlords have frequently contacted exorcists and spiritual mediums, in some cases moved people up the housing list, and even transferred tenants into alternative accommodation to deal with the problem.

None of the 15 housing association respondents had a policy for dealing with complaints of paranormal activity. Yet, without exception, all said they would deal with tenants’ concerns about ghosts sympathetically and seriously. In nine cases spiritual mediums or exorcists had been called to visit properties. And six said they would consider transferring - or in several cases had transferred - tenants into new properties.

One such example was when a tenant of Wales and West Housing reported that a ghost army of Roman soldiers had marched across the living room of his home in Brecon, south Wales. This was just one of a series of troubling ‘supernatural’ complaints. Shortly after, a friend visiting the property complained she had seen black dust fall on her arm and was then ‘bitten on the arm by the ghostly spirit of a girl dressed in a hessian garment’.

Wales and West sent site supervisor Brian Pritchard to investigate. His report stated: ‘All of a sudden it looked like a ripple appeared on the right-hand corner of one of the beds and kids started to run over them.’

Similar incidents were reported in other surrounding Wales and West properties. A medium visited at the tenant’s request and claimed to sense the ghosts of 250 families were ‘trapped in limbo’. It later emerged the site on which the homes were built was a former Roman slave camp. The family was later transferred to another home for health reasons - and no problems have been reported in the property since.

Serious concern
Similarly, when a tenant of 66,000-home Circle asked to be re-housed because of an alleged haunting it was treated as ‘a very serious and delicate matter’. Why? Because ‘the customer involved was badly affected by the experience’.

‘The customer was dealt with sensitively and taken seriously, as we would with all customer concerns - I understand an exorcism was offered,’ a spokesperson says. ‘The customer in question found alternative housing in the end. I am told it later turned out that someone had previously committed suicide in the property.’

Even landlords that have not received reports of the paranormal say they would take complaints of this nature seriously and investigate the underlying cause. Several say they would also consider moving tenants. Orbit Group says it ‘may facilitate a transfer or a management move if the issue was unresolvable and it was causing distress’. Similarly, 12,000-home Contour Homes says it would investigate complaints, potentially using recording equipment, and ‘if there was no possible resolution other than moving the tenant, this would be considered’.

So, why do landlords take complaints about ghosts so seriously?

For a start, as charitable organisations, housing associations must be more sympathetic than other businesses with regard to religious beliefs. And while entertaining the existence of ghosts might not be religion-related, a sizeable proportion of the population is spooked. A YouGov Global poll of 2,400 people in 2011 by psychologist professor Richard Wiseman found that around 25 per cent of the UK’s population believes in ghosts.

Perhaps more significantly, though, complaints of hauntings and paranormal activity could be a product of social landlords’ sometimes vulnerable customer base. Tenants reporting hauntings could be mentally ill, victims of drug and or alcohol abuse, or just reacting to high-stress situations, all of which require sensitive handling.

A few years ago, Tony Brandon, a revenue officer at 14,000-home Thames Valley Housing, had to deal with a tenant complaining that a shadowy presence was attempting to violate her.

‘The lady I dealt with had quite severe mental health issues and was very reclusive,’ says Mr Brandon. ‘Her religious beliefs were also strong. She felt that a neighbour was trying to rape her spiritually. She claimed he was sending his “shadow” - his ghost - down [to her flat] to rape her. Any form of rape is clearly upsetting, and she was convinced this was going on, so she was very distressed.’

Mr Brandon got in touch with the local priest and asked him to bless the property. ‘I thought that if she felt protected that would help,’ he adds. ‘I wanted her to engage with other religious people to help her with the reclusion. She is still reclusive, but I think it did help.’

Curo Group has also been faced with a mentally ill tenant who believed she was being haunted by two relatives. The woman was so scared that she occasionally slept rough rather than stay in her house - but would refuse all offers of counselling. Faced with this kind of harrowing situation and its very real consequences for the tenants concerned it is hard to imagine not taking a complaint - however apparently far-fetched - seriously.

On a separate occasion, however, 12,000-home Curo was faced with another tenant who was neither obviously mentally ill, nor especially religious. Nonetheless, he was adamant an ‘angry spirit’ had been throwing plates and ashtrays around the property. A housing officer, who does not wish to be named, says the tenant claimed another spirit regularly walked through the walls when he was trying to watch Match of the Day.

‘He refused to use the upstairs of the house because of “other more evil spirits” that were haunting the first floor. In response I went to the house and spent two hours with him including time upstairs on my own in the property. I did not experience anything other than the house being cold. I did not attribute this to anything paranormal as the heating was not on.’

The tenant could not show any evidence of the incidents and refused the offer of approaching a church or a local medium and transferred out of the property soon after. A spokesperson for Curo says the only cost has been housing officers’ time.

But time is money. No organisation was able to calculate how much investigating these cases has cost them. However, Redbridge Council said dealing with the two complaints it has received in the past 10 years used around 50 hours of staff time. That could certainly add up for the taxpayer.

So, with ever increasing pressure on housing, how should landlords work out whether citing ‘ghosts’ is a genuine complaint or an elaborate ploy to get a new property?

‘It’s difficult - especially as sometimes people use things to put pressure on landlords to get priority for a move,’ says Phil Oliver, a senior communications advisor at Gentoo Group, who spent 10 years as the 29,000-home organisation’s chief lettings officer and encountered around four alleged hauntings.

‘Sometimes people will use these links to medical conditions to get up the (transfer) list - a doctor’s letter can make all the difference. With paranormal activity, it is obviously very difficult for a tenant to provide evidence or quantify the problem.’

Eye witness
Of course, landlords do also have to consider the possibility that tenants’ homes could actually be haunted. Documents from Sheffield Council reveal that in January 2008, a housing officer was so scared by what she witnessed at a private sector one-bedroom flat that she fled the property. The officer had visited a tenant - a mother with two children - who had asked to move into a council house due to an ‘overcrowding priority’ - but on arrival it emerged there were also more sinister reasons for her desire to leave the flat. She claimed the family had been woken in the night ‘by something strangling’ them and that something had ‘pulled her hair’ and ‘lifted her off the bed’. She also claimed to hear voices and banging and see ghosts of children, an Afro-Caribbean man and an old man with a beard. The family said they were so scared they had decided to move into a hotel.

The officer’s report to the council states that while discussing the family’s options she experienced ‘a tapping sensation on her shoulder’ and heard ‘voices and whispering’ coming from the lounge. She also heard loud banging and the room became icy cold. The officer then witnessed ‘a thick rope hanging in mid-air in the doorway [to the living room]’ which then ‘dropped to the floor’. The officer asked to go into the kitchen as she was too frightened to continue with the visit. But in the kitchen she could still hear the whispering and banging and there ‘was a horrible feeling of foreboding’. The officer left the property and the family packed their bags and followed soon after. The tenant was later awarded a council house.

So, do you believe in ghosts? Because, even if you don’t take the existence of paranormal activity seriously, it is likely your employer does.

A Broxtowe Council report on paranormal activity in one of its tenant’s homes

5 Weird Things That Happen After You Die

The grave, gross facts about how your body decomposes.

Nature isn't kind to the human body after death. Thankfully, the days of natural decomposition have been replaced by decidedly modern rituals of death. We can choose to delay the decomposition process by being embalmed, where our bodily fluids are replaced with preservatives. Or we can be cremated, where we are cooked at temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours while we turn to ash.

 

While our modern disposal rituals might not sound appealing, the process of nature composting us back into the Earth is even less so. Even earliest man knew how to put some distance between himself and his decomposing dead. In 2003, archaeologists found evidence of ancient humans who had buried their dead in northern Spain about 350,000 years ago.

 

So what happens during decomposition? Here are five weird ways our bodies de-construct after death.

 

Your cells burst open. The process in which the human body decomposes starts just minutes after death. When the heart stops beating, we experience algor mortis, or the “death chill,” when the temperature of the body falls about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit an hour until it reaches room temperature. Almost immediately, the blood becomes more acidic as carbon dioxide builds up. This causes cells to split open, emptying enzymes into the tissues, which start to digest themselves from within.

 

You turn white — and purple. Gravity makes its mark on the human body in the first moments after death. While the rest of your body turns deathly pale, heavy red blood cells move to the parts of your body that are closest to the ground. This is because circulation has stopped. The results are purple splotches over your lower parts known as livor mortis. In fact, it is by studying the markings of livor mortis that the coroner can tell exactly what time you died.

 

Calcium makes your muscles contract. We've all heard of rigor mortis, in which a dead body becomes stiff and hard to move. Rigor mortis generally sets in about three to four hours after death, peaks at 12 hours, and dissipates after 48 hours. Why does it happen? There are pumps in the membranes of our muscle cells that regulate calcium. When the pumps stop working in death, calcium floods the cells, causing the muscles to contract and stiffen. Thus, there is rigor mortis.

 

Your organs will digest themselves. Putrefaction, or when our bodies start to look like extras in a zombie movie, follows rigour mortis. This phase is delayed by the embalming process, but eventually the body will succumb. Enzymes in the pancreas make the organ begin to digest itself. Microbes will tag-team these enzymes, turning the body green from the belly onwards. As Caroline Williams writes in NewScientist, “the main beneficiaries are among the 100 trillion bacteria that have spent their lives living in harmony with us in our guts.” As this bacterium breaks us down, it releases putrescine and cadaverine, which are the compounds which make the human body smell in death.

 

You may be covered in a wax. After putrefaction, decay moves quickly to turn the body into a skeleton. However, some bodies take an interesting turn on the way. If a body comes into contact with cold soil or water, it may develop adipocere, a fatty, waxy material formed from the bacteria breaking down tissue. Adipocere works as a natural preservative on the inner organs. It can mislead investigators into thinking a body died much sooner than it actually did, as was the case of a 300-year-old adipocere corpse recently found in Switzerland.

 

In the end, we all return to the Earth: it’s just a matter of how. But whether it’s by composting or the fires of cremation, we all turn to dust and ash — and in some cases, wax.

Get In The Exorcist! Ghost of Dead Roman Soldier Seen Near Brand New Hospital's Morgue!

Inside the shiny new hospital, a tormented soul stalks the wards and corridors.

Yet this is no ill patient, overworked junior doctor or beleaguered NHS trust executive. 
It is a ghost – or so says a leaked memo from a manager. 

Several workers at the £334million Royal Hospital in Derby have apparently been scared witless by the apparition, which they describe as a man dressed in black and wearing a cloak, who can walk through walls.

Such sightings are not unusual in Derby, which is known as the ghost capital of England, so the matter is being treated with a degree of gravitas.

The memo, written to colleagues by senior manager Debbie Butler, said: ‘I’m not sure how many of you are aware that some members of staff have reported seeing a ghost.

‘I’m taking it seriously as the last thing I want is staff feeling uneasy at work.’

She added: ‘I don’t want to scare anyone any more than necessary, but felt it was best I made you all aware of the situation and what we are doing about it.

‘I’ve spoken to the Trust’s chaplain and she is going to arrange for someone from the cathedral to exorcise the department.’

Yesterday, the talk among workers arriving for their afternoon shifts was that the spirit, if there is one, had emerged from the hospital's Level O - the mortuary.

One, a cleaner who asked not to be named, said: ‘My husband phoned me up as I was on my way in and told me not to go and not to be frightened. He’d just heard about it on the radio.

‘But it hasn’t put me off. In fact, I’d quite like to see a ghost. Perhaps it could help out when we’re understaffed.’

Some believe the visitor is the ghost of a Roman soldier. The site used to be occupied by Derby’s City General Hospital, which was controversially built over one of Ancient Britain’s main Roman roads.

Ian Wilce, co-founder of the Ghost-finder Paranormal Society, said: ‘Generally, spirits we see are those of people who have died suddenly or who frequent a place where they enjoyed being.

‘Wherever this one came from, it doesn’t sound like an evil spirit – if it was, it would be wreaking havoc and throwing things around.  

‘It sounds more like a spirit that has been laying dormant and been disturbed by the building development.’ 

Mr Wilce added: ‘Many sightings can traced back to logical explanations, such as shadows, or psychological factors – if people think there may be something there, they are more likely to imagine they have seen something.’

Benedictine monk Dom Anthony Sutch agreed that the spirit did not sound like a demon, and therefore exorcism was not necessary. The hospital’s PR department said there was ‘absolutely no truth’ in reports that an exorcism will be arranged.  

Derby won its title of most haunted in the Supernatural Britain Report by Lionel Fanthorpe, an expert on the paranormal.

Mr Fanthorpe found there had been 315 reported ghosts, poltergeists, werewolves and vampires in Derby throughout history.

Ghost-Hunting In Devon!

Ghost-hunting's not for wimps, as we find out on hair-raising tour of a haunted Devon manor house!

Kate Wallace's death wasn't peaceful. Legend has it she was shipwrecked off the coast of Ilfracombe, north Devon, when returning to the town in 1695. She was nursed, coincidentally, by her parents, but was so badly bruised that they did not recognise her. Three days later, she died, but only after her father, William – who, as a shipwrecker, had lured her ship to its doom in the first place – relieved the unknown woman of all her valuables. Upon realising who she was, the poor man was so overcome he entombed her body in a room in his house, Chambercombe Manor, where she stayed until 1865 when her dusty skeleton was discovered by some unsuspecting tenants.

So between her and Lady Jane Grey – another former visitor at Chambercombe who met a similarly grisly end – it's not surprising that ghost-hunters here get pelted with stones, pushed into corners by freezing blasts of air and are run out of the house by moaning voices.

"I don't believe in demons," says head ghost-hunter Jayne Hendy. "But I do believe in demonic spirits. They're like people, you just need to know how to handle them." She says this as I clutch two dousing rods, metal apparatus used to locate spirits and other paranormal activity. It is stage one of our paranormal training with Haunted Happenings, which throughout the evening will see us conducting lone ghost vigils in a scullery, having a séance in a spooky bedroom and taking a ghostly tour of the grounds. My rods and I don't communicate well. If there are any currents of unearthly radiation in Chambercombe, I'm the human equivalent of a nuclear bunker. It's not a situation I am keen to remedy. Despite the cheery gingham and bright lights of the Lady Jane's tearooms where we begin our night, there's little getting away from the fact that Chambercombe is creepy.

"Don't worry," says Jayne cheerfully as we skulk into the house behind her. "If you're scared, first look for a logical explanation for the sensations you're feeling, such as a massive spider climbing over your face. Something like that." After some consideration I decide that yes, this is a marginally preferable outcome to meeting a disgruntled member of the undead.

Jayne is a medium and a paranormal investigator with 25 years of spirit experience behind her. Together with Haunted Happenings founder Hazel Ford, who runs similar events up and down the country, she will be chaperoning us through the night. Some of the group are old hands, discussing recent sightings of spirits and whole tables shaking. But most of us are just curious first- or second-timers. One man wears an expression of bored disbelief and carries a very scientific-looking instrument which resembles a Geiger counter. I resolve to stay near him.

We begin our hunting in the main bedroom – a room dominated by an oppressive, intricately carved four-poster bed and a baby's cradle which has been known to rock by itself. Next door is where Kate Wallace's body was bricked up. I can't decide which part of the room scares me least, so I hover uncertainly by the end of the bed. Error. Jayne elects me to feel a certain part of the air near her which is icy cold. The whole room is icy cold. But this bit is definitely colder. According to Jayne, it is also five foot seven. I withdraw my hand and scuttle off to a corner, fearful of having groped Kate Wallace.

Sitting on the floor we begin the séance, and after 10 or so minutes there is a faint knock coming from outside the door. Jayne urges the assumed spirit to come in; I urge it to stay put. More minutes pass, during which time floorboards creak and other members of the group report feeling cold air blowing on their hands. Later on, I return in a smaller group with a spirit board (like a Ouija board) and we try to communicate with whoever was looming around the room earlier. The board spells out "Sofia" who says she is seven. I'm so interested in what Sofia is doing up at 2am talking with us that I forget to be freaked out by the fact that the planchette is moving apparently of its own accord. The guys at Haunted Happenings do this well: there is very little sensationalism in their actions, keen as they are to manage expectations.

Dissatisfied with Sofia, who bade us farewell pretty swiftly, confirming that child attention spans have not changed much over the centuries, we move to the Great Hall and sit quietly around a large, heavy wood table. A glass in the centre of the table begins to move. Whoever is guiding it seems keen to talk to one member of our group. Suddenly some pebbles come skittering across the floor. I jump out of my skin as we clatter around trying to find an explanation. No large spiders are apparent. But the house used to be inhabited by violent smugglers and shipwreckers – tunnels from the beach coming right into the room where I sit. I reckon they must have quite a good throwing arm.

By now it is 4am, and being on edge for eight hours is taking its toll. Yet clearly the spirits are not in the mood for talking or scaring the bejesus out of us tonight, which in many ways adds some authenticity to the proceedings. The part of me which wanted to believe is unsatisfied. The part of me which likes being able to sleep soundly at night most certainly is. And the cheery breakfast back in Lady Jane's tearooms does a lot to make me rationalise events. Pebbles? I muse while I scoff croissants: obviously it was just the wind. Yes, that makes sense. Doesn't it?

County Durham's Haunted History

County Durham is one of the UK's most hanuted places according to local ghost hunter Rob Kirkup.

There are 569 listed buildings in Durham city-centre

Steeped in history - archaeological evidence from the region dates back to 2000BC.

There are 569 listed buildings in Durham city centre alone - Rob believes it's this rich history that makes it so ghostly.

According to Rob - the county's most haunted places include Lumley Castle, Crook Hall and the Ancient Unicorn Inn.

Author of the new book Ghostly County Durham - Rob said: "There's been some horrible things that have happened in the county - murder, plagues.

"In my book there's 28 places I've written about - but I could have wrote about 100."

Lily of Lumley

Rob believes that Lumley Castle is probably the most haunted site in County Durham.

It hit the headlines in 2005 when members of the Australian cricket team were so scared that some refused to sleep alone.

Legend has it that the castle is haunted by the ghost of Lily of Lumley - a 14th Century lady of the manor, who was thrown down a well in the castle grounds by two priests after rejecting the Catholic Church.

Ghostly Figure

Making up the rest of the top five are Durham Castle, Crook Hall, the North of England Lead Mining Museum and the Ancient Unicorn Inn.

At Durham Castle the ghostly figure of a woman has been witnessed gliding up one of its staircases since the 17th Century.

Local legend claims that this is the spirit of Isabella Van Mildert who fell down the staircase, breaking her neck.

The castle is also said to be haunted by the ghost of Frederick Copeman, one of Durham University's first ever students - who threw himself from the tower of the cathedral after failing his exams.

Ghost hunters

So what is it that makes some places haunted?

Rob explained that many believe in the stone tape theory - if something truly awful happens then it stays in the fabric of the land or building and gets replayed over and over again.

Rob said: "There generally does tend to be some kind of horrible murder or something like the plague involved.

"But then again there's places like the North of England Lead Mine Museum - during the time it was open only three people were killed there, but it's one of the most haunted places in County Durham."

The North of England Lead Mining Museum is a favourite of ghost hunters as footsteps and hushed voices are believed to be heard coming from the mine even when it's empty.

It's also said to be haunted by a miner who died violently there.

Local legend has it that the scream of a miner's wife who was never seen again after going looking for her husband, can be heard in nearby woods.

North East

But Rob knows that many people are sceptical about the existence of ghosts.

He said: "What I'd say to them is have you ever taken the time to see if you can find a ghost?

"When I got into this I wasn't a 100% convinced I believed in ghosts - but if you look back over the centuries that have passed - there could genuinely be something to it."

Ghostly County Durham is Rob's third book - he's previously written Ghostly Northumberland and Ghostly Tyne and Wear.

Rob believes that north-east England is a particularly haunted place.

He said: "York and Edinburgh are often considered the most haunted places in the UK - but the North East has to be up there.

"Look at the number of castles there are and the history - I don't think there's another region that can touch us."

Our Haunted Nation

A new book reveals the most chilling ghosts and unexplained stories of paranormal activity from all corners of Britain!

The Tower of London

THE ROYAL SPECTRES

Considering how many people met a grisly end in the Tower of London it’s not surprising it is one of the most haunted places in the world. The ghost of Anne Boleyn, holding her head, has been seen in the White Tower and elsewhere screams thought to belong to Henry Viii’s other executed wife Catherine Howard can be heard.

But it is the ghost of 17-year-old Lady Jane grey, executed on the orders of Henry’s daughter Mary, that really spooks the Yeoman. One reported feeling as if he were being strangled by ghostly hands in the salts Tower where Lady Jane was imprisoned and dogs have an irrational fear of the place. But there are many other spooky goings on in our haunted nation...

GLASGOW ROYAL INFIRMARY

The imposing Victorian building that houses this old hospital certainly looks like the sort of place that could be riddled with the spirits of the dead.

At least three ghosts have been seen haunting its corridors. On ward 27 nurses have observed an  elderly man, known only as Archie, talking to some of the patients who are about to die, while a ghostly ward sister has been seen floating along the corridors at night, she appears normal but has no legs below the knee.

One of the stairwells is said to be haunted by surgeon sir William Macewen, who refused to conduct an operation on a young man who suffered terrible headaches, believing the procedure unnecessary. As the man was leaving he

fell to his death down four flights of stairs.

Sir William, who died shortly afterwards, is thought to be still suffering from the guilt of his decision.

GREAT BED OF WARE

One of the most intriguing objects in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is the great Bed of Ware. Measuring 11ft long and 10ft 9in wide it was made by a carpenter from Ware in Hertfordshire called Jonas Fosbrooke.

He created it in 1463 for edward iV and specified that it should be used only for royalty. in 1483 the bed was sold to an innkeeper and since then all sorts of common people have slept in it. Many soon regretted the decision, however, and reported being pinched and scratched in the night. Jonas’s ghost, they believed, was punishing them for daring to sleep in a bed fit only for a king.

THE DISCOUNT STORE SPIRIT

While most apparitions haunt gothic mansions, ancient pubs and foreboding castles, one ghost prefers a Poundstretcher store in gloucester. in 2005 CCTV cameras recorded a ghostly figure knocking over a pile of boxes in the cellar.

The shop stands on the site of an old theatre, which was thought to have been haunted by eliza Johnson, an actress who hanged herself there after a doomed love affair.

“You can often feel her presence. sometimes you can feel an icy cold,” deputy manager sue Cooper said. “You can feel a gagging or a choking,  especially down in the cellar.”

HAIRY HANDS OF POSTBRIDGE

Being harassed by a pair of disembodied hairy hands might seem a little comical but those who claim to have encountered the severed hands didn’t find the experience amusing. during the last 100 years several cyclists and motorcyclists riding along the dartmoor stretch of the B3212 between Two Bridges and Postbridge in Devon claim to have been forced off the road after “muscular, hairy hands” suddenly clamped down on top of theirs own on the handlebars.

At least one motorcyclist has been killed in the area after inexplicably veering off the road.

In 1925 a woman staying in a caravan by the side of the road woke in the night to find a dismembered hand clawing at the window. The following day a car was found in a nearby ditch: its driver was dead at the wheel.

BABIES IN THE TOWERS

For hundreds of years people have reported hearing the sound of crying babies around the Reculver towers in Kent: twin towers that are almost all that remain of the Saxon church of St Mary’s near Herne Bay.

In the Sixties archaeologists excavating a Roman fort, which was built on the site before the church was erected, found a number of ancient babies’ skeletons. Nobody knows why so many infants were buried there but some feel that this may have been part of a sacrifice ritual.

THE YORKSHIRE WITCH

In medieval Britain paranoia about witches led to hundreds of women being executed with little more evidence than a forced confession. However one of Yorkshire’s most famous witches, known as Mother Shipton, was somehow spared the death sentence, despite seeming to possess some remarkable powers of prophecy.

Born in a cave by the river Nidd near Knaresborough in 1488 she issued predictions in the form of rhyming couplets, many of which later proved to be spookily accurate.

The following one even seems to have predicted the invention of motor cars and the internet: “Carriages without horses shall go.

And accidents fill the world with woe/Around the world thoughts shall fly/In the twinkling of an eye.”

HANGMAN'S INN

There is an old wooden beam below the stair- case of the Skirrid Mountain Inn pub in Abergavenny, South Wales, that still has the wear marks of its gruesome past.

In 1685 more than 180 people were hanged from the beam after the building served as  a court house for Hanging Judge Jeffreys, who punished members of a rebellion against King James II with ruthless and bloodthirsty efficiency.

Since then investigators have reported plenty of paranormal activity at the pub. Glasses have appeared to fly across the room and patrons have reported feeling suddenly cold or experienced a sensation of being strangled.

Village of spooks According to the Guinness Book Of Records, the apparently charming village of Pluckley  in Kent is officially the most haunted place in Britain.

A ghostly highwayman appears, pinned by a sword to a tree outside the village, while a spectral horse and carriage are seen in the high street.

A poltergeist dwells in one of the two pubs while a Victorian woman haunts the bar of the other. There are three ghosts in the church and a phantom monk wanders the grounds of a house near the railway station.

NIGHTMARE MANSION

When millionaire businessman Anwar Rashid from Dubai bought a 17-bedroom mansion in Clifton, Nottinghamshire, for £3.6million in 2007, he thought he had snapped up a bargain.

But on the first evening after he and his family moved into Clifton Hall they began hearing screams in the corridors, knocking noises on the walls and a man’s voice crying: “Is anyone there?”

The Rashids also noticed ghostly figures moving in the corridors and strange apparitions. “When we found blood spots on the baby’s quilt that was the day my wife said she’d had enough,” Mr Rashid admitted.

“We didn’t even stay that night. It was the last straw. We felt that they had come to attack us. It was really emotional.”

The family moved out and handed the keys to the bank.

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