Popular belief suggests that Britain is the ancestral home of all ghosts.
The Edwardian actress,Lillie Langtry, was said to haunt 103 Alexandra Road, Northwest in London, England until they demolished her house to build a housing development.
An old inn called The Grenadier by Hyde Park which was the officers' mess of the Duke of Wellington is said to be haunted in September by the ghost of an officer flogged to death for cheating at cards.
Nearly all the royal residences of Britain are haunted. There is a corridor in the servants' quarters of Sandringham where the ghost of a footman from an earlier age is seen. In Windsor Castle, the face of George III has appeared, and in the Bloody Tower of London there are the ghosts of at least two queens.
The most celebrated of British royal ghosts is Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, whose ghost has been seen at Hamptom Court, the eastern parapet of Windsor Castle, and the Salt Tower of the Tower of London.
Longleat in Somerset must be the most publicized haunted house in all of England. It is haunted by four ghosts. One, its builder, Sir John Thynne, who appears mostly in the Red Library of the home. Second, mourning her lost love killed in a duel, Lady Louisa Carteret the wife of the second Viscount of Weymouth and who had been unfaithful, is said to haunt the corridor that runs parallel to the sleeping quarters of some of the Thynne family. Third, the rebel from the Duke of Monmouth's army who was caught and slaughtered at the castle. Fourth, Thomas Thynne, a murdered ancestor.
Lady Dorothy Walpole Townshend, sister of the famous British polictician and prime minister, haunts Raynham Hall where she died. She is known as the Brown Lady.
Old Woodhouse Lea is the second most haunted house in Scotland Allegedly, in the earlier century (13th to 15th) a nude woman of the house was pushed out by invaders into deep snow where she died. She is said to appear about 7 p.m. in the evening in deep snow and knocks at the door. However, old Woodhouse Lea has been torn down and a private chalet built over it.
Leith Hall in the central highlands of Scotand is haunted by the laird of Leith Hall, John Leith. It is reported that, in the 17th or 18th century, he went to Aberdeen to drink with his friends. He got into an argument with a man named Abernathy. It is not known if a duel was fought or if Abernathy just murdered John Leith. John was shot through the head which his servant bandaged and John died three days later on Christmas Day. When John Leith appears, he seems solid with no phosphorescence around him and with a dirty bandage on his head.Whitby Abbey in England is said to be haunted by Saint Hilda, the abbess, who appears at night dressed in a shroud in one of the abbey's window. A coach with four headless horses is seen to go over a cliff near the abbey into the North Sea. The most interesting ghost to haunt Whitby Abbey is Constance de Beverly, a nun who broke her vow for a false knight; as punishment she was bricked up, alive, in the abbey's dungeon. She is seen today on the dungeon staircase pleading with her persecutors.
On the morning of August 19, 1942, a force of 5,000 Canadians, British and American troops, composing five regiments and three battalions, landed at the French coastal port of Dieppe. Although stated as merely a raid, in secret it was a measure to test the German defenses, in "Fortress Europe." Several things went wrong that day. First, there was no air cover. Second, the southern force who was to divert enemy forces from the main landing force landed twenty minutes late. They were soon pushed back losing over 2,600 men. In August 1951, Dorothy and Agnes Norton were vacationing near Dieppe. One morning they heard the sounds of battle for twenty minutes several times that morning. A few years later reading a publication about the battle, they realized that the times they heard the battle corresponded exactly to when it happened. Therefore, it is believed that the beach at Dieppe is haunted by these lost men.
Home
