The Paranormal Database

Captain Edward Purvis

Location: Reading - Watlington House
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Dressed in his red uniform, smoking a pipe, Captain Edward looks out of the window onto the outside world.

Mary Blandy

Location: Remenham - Little Angel public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Hanged for poisoning her father to prevent him from objecting to her marriage, Mary is sometimes seen around the pub where she fled.

Cortege

Location: Slough - Ditton Park Manor House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: While under control of the MoD, the site had a spooky reputation. During the 1970s, a gardener watched a phantom funeral cortege dressed in eighteenth century clothing pass through the grounds in an area later found to have been a chapel. Guards were said to have refused to patrol certain areas of the building and dogs refuse to enter areas. A Jacobean-era man was said to emerge from a painting, and the driveway was haunted by a horse-drawn carriage.

Raining Golf Balls

Location: Slough - Huntercombe Lane North
Type: Other
Date / Time: 2001-2004
Further Comments: Over the three year period hundreds of golf balls have fallen from the sky and landed in resident's gardens along this road, though no golf course is near.

Shadow

Location: Slough - Meadfield Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: March 2016
Further Comments: Two people sitting in a car watched a 'shadow' pass by and disappeared up the road. One of the witnesses, who lived nearby, believed it related to a presence in their own home, which creates cold spots and generates the benign sensation of searching for something.

Woman Covered in Blood

Location: Slough - Upton Court
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Traditionally Friday nights (reoccurring), but actually 1997-2009
Further Comments: Tradition places a phantom girl at this site who, dressed in her nightdress, has been seen wandering the court covered in red stains, though it is unclear whether the blood is her own. When Slough Observer newspaper worked in the building, staff would report strange phenomenon such as spotting a phantom woman, watching doors open unaided, or hearing weird sounds.

Isabella of Valois

Location: Sonning - Site of Bishop's Palace (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Summer evenings (last seen late eighteenth/early nineteen century?)
Further Comments: Wife of Richard II, Queen Isabella' drifts around the field where the palace once stood. As the phantom grey woman moves, ghostly music emerges from the ground. George III's organist lived nearby and may have been the last person to witness the phantom.

Lady Philomere

Location: Sonning - The Mill theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Lady Philomere is said to have thrown herself into the nearby waters to end her life, and now haunts the theatre.

Heron

Location: Sonning - Maiden Erlegh House (demolished 1960)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Two animal ghosts were once said to roam here; a phantom heron would fly down into the lake and a spectral horse roamed the surrounding area.

An old postcard showing Sonning-on-Thames.

Child

Location: Sonning-on-Thames - Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A young child is said to haunt this bridge. The story hit the headlines in September 2013 after a letterbox appeared in the centre buttress of the bridge.

A phantom farmer.

William Field

Location: South Moreton - Unknown barn in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1804-1850
Further Comments: William was a farmer who hanged himself in this barn. His ghost quickly returned and haunted the neighbourhood until exorcised many years later by a team of eleven clergymen. The men finally drove the entity into a pond, using a stake to hold it there.

Diana Dors

Location: Sunningdale - Orchard Manor
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1984 (Dors), 1985 (lake)
Further Comments: Shortly after the death of her employer. and talking to the press, housekeeper Honor Webb claimed Diana Dors' ghost tugged at her arm and gestured at the wardrobe. Webb believed Dors wanted her to empty it of the actress's clothing, but she refused to do so. Six months after Alan Lake, Dors' husband, took his own life in the house, Webb spotted him on a CCTV screen.

A golden calf.

Calf

Location: Thatcham - Grimsbury Castle (hillfort)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: In the nearby woodland, a golden calf is reputedly buried.

A phantom child at Tidmarsh.

Drowned Lad

Location: Tidmarsh - Stream near Tidmarsh Rectory
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: June (reoccurring), clear nights of the full moon - last seen 1880s?
Further Comments: The stream that ran close to this property was said to be haunted by a young boy who once drowned in its waters.

Suicidal Man

Location: Tilehurst - Railway station waiting room
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This ghost left the premises after a blessing from a couple of local clergymen. Popular belief is that he took his own life in the waiting room, and not that he was the first casualty of the mythical British Rail sandwich.

King's Mistress

Location: Wallingford - George Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Room 3 was reportedly the home of a ghostly mistress of Charles I, who cried herself to death on hearing of his execution. Room 5 appears to be the haunt of two children, who stand by the wash basin.

Hannah

Location: Warfield - Leathern Bottle inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Hannah was murdered by her landlord husband after he discovered she was having an affair. He was executed for the crime, and now they both haunt the building.

Depressing Atmosphere

Location: Wargrave - Bull Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Haunted by a depressingly sad woman who is occasionally heard sobbing her heart out, her mood is supposed to rub off on people and make them cry. One story says the woman was married to the landlord but caught having an affair and forced the leave her home and child, dying of a broken heart.

White Woman

Location: Wargrave - Gaunt cottage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: An owner of the cottage claimed it was haunted by this lady in white.

Rider

Location: Wargrave - Pathway known as Hyghams
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The threat of spotting a phantom woman on horseback ensured locals would not use this route after dark.

Binjy

Location: Wargrave - River Thames near the High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The entity known as Binjy would try to lure people into the water of the river.

White Stag

Location: Wargrave - Upper Wargrave
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A white stag, which gained protection from the king who spent a day attempting to hunt the creature, remained to run through the area after its death.

Sentry

Location: Wash Common - Biggs Cottage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This guard still protects the building where Parliamentarian generals once rested.

Accidents along the M4 - could ghosts be to blame?

Palmer's Post

Location: Welford - M4 Motorway near the village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970
Further Comments: Used by a local wise man as a place to banish evil spirits, the post was uprooted when the motorway was constructed; subsequent mishaps on the road have been attributed to the incident.

Lancaster Crew

Location: Welford - RAF Welford
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: The crew of a Lancaster bomber which crashed shortly after take-off have been observed crossing the old runway. The Glenn Miller hangar is one of the last places the big band member played before being killed; one account says the place is eerily quiet with local wildlife shunning the area, while another says band music has been heard coming from the hangar.