The Paranormal Database

Examining folkloric, paranormal & cryptozoological locations in the UK and beyond

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Phantom Horses & Riders from across the Isles

White Horse

Location: Loch Dornoch (Highland) - Straight piece of road lined with trees on both sides
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2001
Further Comments: Witness Mr Morrison stopped his car suddenly when he encountered a white horse ridden by a Victorian man in the middle of the road. Both entities vanished quickly into the distance.

Water Horse

Location: Loch Shin (Highland) - Waters of the loch
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This creature was friendlier than many of the other Scottish water horses and assisted in the construction of a local church. It may have been yellow in colour.

Alex Skene

Location: Loch Skene (Aberdeenshire) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local villain, Alex was drowned by Old Nick as he tried to cross the waters of the loch in his horse-drawn carriage. The same coach still travels the surrounding countryside, driven by its dead master. The same area is also 'haunted' by a large hairy monster, apparently once photographed from a distance.

Headless Horseman

Location: Lochbuie (Argyll and Bute) - Lochbuie House
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Prior to tragedy in the Ewen family
Further Comments: This decapitated ghostly figure was once Ewen of the Little Head. Ewen was killed in battle with a rogue laird and now appears in the area around the house to warn the Ewen family of impending doom. Another animal, a large black dog, is reported to patrol the grounds.


The Bean-nighe, or Scottish washer-woman, standing waist deep in water. Image by Wayne Lowden.

Bean-nighe

Location: Lochbuie, Isle of Mull (Argyll and Bute) - River by Moy Castle
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 1500s
Further Comments: The Bean-nighe is a Scottish spirit, an ill bringer who would be seen washing the clothes of those soon to die. This creature has long breasts, slung over her shoulders, and if she were grabbed from behind, the Bean-nighe would say whom the clothes belonged; if yours, she could change fate. The owner of the castle, upon seeing the creature, tried to grab her but failed - he died in battle the following day. As if this entity were not enough to contend with, the area is haunted by a headless horseman.

White Horse

Location: Lochgelly (Fife) - Old house (may no longer stand) on the banks of Loch Gelly, Powguild
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A white horse once haunted the area around the house. Another animal ghost was reputedly a mole - a former resident declared that she would haunt the garden she loved in the form of the furry mammal, and so she did.

Headless Horseman

Location: Loddington (Leicestershire) - Road on a steep hill in the area
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The horseman, holding his head under one arm, gallops at breakneck speed down the hill, with anyone who witnesses him doomed to suffer a family bereavement.

Coach

Location: Long Bredy (Dorset) - Kingston Russell House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The driveway of the house is said to be haunted by a coach containing a headless footman and four headless passengers, driven by a headless coachman, pulled by a team of four headless horses.

Headless Horses

Location: Long Compton (Warwickshire) - Long Compton Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather dependent: After a storm
Further Comments: A coach pulled by six headless horses is said to travel up the hill. There are also vague reports of a shuck-like dog that runs in the same area. Another ghost, that of a scary old woman with matted black hair, was also reported here in 1973.

Horse & Cart

Location: Longham (Dorset) - Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 29 July 2012. 04:30h
Further Comments: While overtaking a slow moving lorry, a driver spotted a grey horse and cart to the side of the bridge ahead of him. When the driver reached the bridge, the horse had vanished.

Horses

Location: Lostwithiel (Cornwall) - Braddock Down
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 19 January (reoccurring)
Further Comments: The site of a Cromwellian defeat, the anniversary of which is marked by phantom hoof falls.

Coach & Horses

Location: Louth (Lincolnshire) - Cadeby Hall and Barton Street
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Prior to death in family
Further Comments: The evening prior to a death in the owner's family a team of four horses would pull a coach up the driveway before fading from view. The nearby Barton Street is also haunted by a phantom horse that throws its rider into a ditch.

Galloping Horse

Location: Lower Bebington (Lancashire) - Orchard Cottage (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Demolished in 1934, the surrounding land of the cottage is haunted by a horse which could be heard quite distinctly, though never seen.

Tommy

Location: Lowestoft (Suffolk) - Grange Farm, Henstead
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Misty evenings
Further Comments: Seen on marsh fields with another horse at night, Tommy died several years previous, though still enjoys grazing alongside his former friends.


Lyme Regis Harbour, Dorset.

Duke of Monmouth

Location: Lyme Regis (Dorset) - Harbour area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghostly figure of the Duke of Monmouth, upon a white horse, is said to ride inland.

Coach and Horses

Location: Lyme Regis (Dorset) - Road near Trent Manor House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This piece of road is haunted by a coach that vanished without trace many years ago.

Coach and Four

Location: Lyng (Norfolk) - Balor's Pit, Caddors Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This team of horses and the coach all fell into the pit and drowned. Their ghosts run along the fateful route and the accident is periodically replayed.

Winner

Location: Maesteg (Mid Glamorgan) - Mountainside near Colliery
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A group of miners playing cards invited a passing stranger to join their game. He sat with them, quickly winning all hands, although the game quickly came to an end when the miners fled, having realised their guest had cloven feet.

Horses

Location: Maesteg (Mid Glamorgan) - St David's Church
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A legend once said that horses were driven around the area of the church by an invisible entity. Fire emerging from the horses' nostrils would be blamed for darkened grass and the flaking paint on fencing. In the same area, a phantom donkey was said to have been banished after a man kicked the creature.


Maghull in Lancashire, taken by Peter Crawley.

Sounds of Battle

Location: Maghull (Lancashire) - Exact place not known, but south of the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: One would have hoped that this Jacobite battle would have finished by now, but it is not the case. The occasional headless horseman is reported in the area. Image (c) Peter Crawley.

Headless Coachman

Location: Maidenwell (Lincolnshire) - Ostler's Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: A headless coachman, his missing cranium in a box besides him, drives his coach and four along this lane.

Blazing Eyed Dog

Location: Malahide (County Dublin) - Feltrim Hill
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A large black hound with burning red eyes was said to lurk in this area. A phantom grey horse is also reported, as is an old woman laden down with a bundle of faggots, drifting towards the Holy Well.

Horse

Location: Mamhead (Devon) - Area around the obelisk
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 18 October 2009
Further Comments: Walking her dogs, this witness heard and felt a large horse trotting towards her. She called the dogs to one side, to let the rider pass, but upon turning around, she could she nothing there.

Pounding Hooves

Location: Manifold Valley (Staffordshire) - Road leading to Throwley Hall (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: The local stories state that many years ago, a coach returning guests to the hall crashed along the road, killing all on board. The horses (and sometimes the wheels of the coach) can still be heard on occasion, thundering along the road.

Golden Coach

Location: Manningford Bruce (Wiltshire) - The Hatches
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 01 January (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Pulled by a team of four headless horses, this golden coach appears at The Hatches.

Records 301 - 314 of 314

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