If you're wondering how best to spend this Halloween and are bored of the usual horror movie nights, Trick-or-Treating with the kids, and costume parties, how about going ghost hunting in some of the most haunted locations in Britain? Be warned though, some of these places are not home to the friendliest of spirits...
Haunted house
1. The Tower of London
This fortress next to the River Thames is one of the major tourist spots in London. It's where Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, was beheaded and she is reported to have been seen wandering the tower with her head tucked under her arm. Henry VI and Lady Jane Grey are among the other ghosts who have apparently appeared, and one man in the 19th century even claimed he saw an apparition of a bear!
2. Hampton Court Palace
If you've been to the Tower of London already, you can allegedly bump into two more of Henry VIII's wives at this 500-year-old building. Catherine Howard was under house arrest here until her execution, while Jane Seymour was buried here after she died while giving birth. Visitors have described seeing a woman dressed in white wandering the halls.
3. Pluckley
Known as the most haunted village in the UK according to the Guinness Book of Records, this area of Kent is known to be the home of twelve or more spooks. They've got the Watercress Woman at Pinnock Bridge, who accidentally burnt herself to death; the Red Lady and the White Lady at Saint Nicholas Church; as well as a hanged schoolmaster and a highway man at Fright Corner. It was also the location of TV series The Darling Buds of May, so it's not entirely spooktastic.
4. 284 Green Street
The Enfield Poltergeist has become known as one of the most intriguing and high profile paranormal cases in British history. It follows the story of a single mother and her three children who are tormented for two years by a noisy ghost at their council house in London, right under the nose of paranormal investigators, police officers and members of the public. Of course, many remain totally sceptical about the events that took place in Green Street, but you can't deny some of things that occurred there were deeply unsettling.
5. Samlesbury Hall
Another Lancashire location, one of the spookiest ghost stories of this place involved a guest at a dinner party in the 19th century. He reportedly saw a macabre looking man driving a horse-drawn funeral carriage outside, though none of the other guests had seen any such thing. Later, when he was staying at a nearby hotel, he opened the doors of the brand new elevator only to see that same creepy man in a lift attendant's uniform. Needless to say, he took the stairs two at a time instead, and moments later he heard a crash which shook the building. The elevator cables had snapped, the car crashed to the ground, and the mysterious lift attendant was nowhere to be found.
6. Chillingham Castle
This aptly named medieval fortress in Northumberland has been the subject of many televised paranormal investigations and has been unofficially branded by some as the most haunted castle in Britain. The most famous ghost is that of the Blue Boy who allegedly haunts the Pink Room. Guests have reported being woken by a loud wail before glimpsing a flash of blue or a halo of light.
7. Ancient Ram Inn
If you're ever in Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire and fancy a pint or a bed for the night, you'd better think twice before visiting this quaint pub. A number of grisly events are thought to have happened here from a witch-burning to the ritual murder of several children. It's more than 800-years-old, so who knows what other dark events this old place might have seen?
8. Pendle Hill
In 1612, the infamous twelve Pendle Witches were hanged, and later buried at Pendle Hill in Lancashire near the village of Newchurch. They were tried and executed for the murders of ten people by means of witchcraft, and the spot is still a popular tourist destination, particularly on Halloween for those hoping to capture a glimpse of a ghostly spectre. In recent years, however, authorities have discouraged such visits to the area.
9. Borley Rectory
It was psychic researcher Harry Price who branded this former clergy house as the most haunted house in England, but sadly it's no longer around. It was demolished in the forties after a fire, though the grounds are still accessible to those who wish to visit. Paranormal activity has been reported since it was built in the 1800s; apparitions, horse-drawn carriages, and it's even thought that ghost hunters in the grounds have had stones thrown at them.
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