The Paranormal Database

Woman in Green

Location: Cambridge - Private house along Trumpington Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1890s
Further Comments: Several witnesses were said to have encountered a ghostly woman wearing a green dress with a red feather in her hat. One man commented on a portrait of the woman that hung in a room he had just left, only to be told that no such painting existed.

Dark Figure

Location: Cambridge - Private house off Hills Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: November 2023 - February 2024
Further Comments: A resident here felt the bedroom had an extremely eerie feeling, as if someone wanted them to leave their house. Eventually the resident moved their bed into the living room to avoid the presence, although on one occasion they spotted a dark shadowy figure standing in the living room doorway.

On Demand

Location: Cambridge - Private residence, Highworth Avenue
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 1994
Further Comments: An unseen entity unlocked and turned a door handle on polite request.

Montague Road, Cambridge.

Frail Young Woman in a Hammock

Location: Cambridge - Private residence, Montague Road
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 1924
Further Comments: A witness saw a young lady in the summer house lying on a hammock. Sometime later he was told the description matched that of his aunt, who had died of tuberculosis a few months before his visit.

Young Boy

Location: Cambridge - Private residence, Petersfield area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late 2014
Further Comments: A resident who started seeing a young boy in mid-twentieth century clothing researched her neighbourhood and found ten people, including children, had died in a bombing accident.

Goat Headed Monster

Location: Cambridge - River Cam close to Stourbridge Common (or not, as the case may be)
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 1276
Further Comments: Lady Eveline Camilla (Newton) Gurdon claimed this monster encounter possibly happened in Suffolk, while the 'Every Day Book' placed it in Cambridge. They were both wrong - it comes from Poland; the story is from 'The Doome Warning All Men to the Judgemente' and reads: Fishers toke a disfigured divell, in a certain Stoure (which is a mighty gathering togither of waters from some narrow lake of the sea), a horrible monster with a goat's head, and eyes shyning lyke fyre, whereuppon they were all afrayde and ranne awaye; and that ghoste plunged himselfe under the ice, and running tippe and downe in the stoure made a terrible noyse and sound.

White Lady

Location: Cambridge - Sherratt & Hughes, Trinity Street (closed in 1991)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Once said to be the oldest bookshop in the UK, the building claims to have a white lady who walks silently down the aisles. Her history is unknown. There are also reports of a man in Victorian evening dress.

Abbey Road, Abbey House, Cambridge.

A Nun and Brown Dog-Thing

Location: Cambridge - Abbey Road, Abbey House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Further Comments: It is claimed that Abbey House is, or at least was, the most haunted house in Cambridge. While I'm not a fan of 'most haunted' titles, when you look at the number and type of the ghosts supposed to haunt the site (a poltergeist, ghostly echoes of chains, a butler, a woman in white, a grey lady, a squirrel, a dog, and a hare all amongst the entities which have popped up), one can understand why the title has been applied here. An exorcism was performed in the 1980s, which may have laid the entities.

Drug Induced Ghost

Location: Cambridge - Addenbrookes Hospital
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The story is that a ghost appears to those who are being administered morphine; the psychological effects of the drug would appear to be ignored in this tale.

Arbury Road, Cambridge.

Unlucky Shuck

Location: Cambridge - Arbury Road
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This road, and area, are said to be frequented by a shuck that brings ill luck to all that see it.

Haunted studios of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

Womaniser

Location: Cambridge - BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, studio 1a
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2003
Further Comments: The studio is reportedly haunted by an old man renowned for his womanising ways - he was never seen, though his presence was felt. In the early 2000s the BBC invited local ghost hunters and psychic mediums to investigate. Armed with crystals, dowsing rods, a piece of paper on a string, and an EMF meter, the attempt to reach the other side resulted in both male and female presences being detected.

Second World War Pilot

Location: Cambridge - Cambridge Airport
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: A few buildings on this site have reports of phantom pilots in their flying gear or RAF uniforms. Sounds of footsteps in empty areas are not uncommon, and there is also a story of ghostly singing.

Police Officer

Location: Cambridge - Chesterton Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 21 August 2012, 14:30h
Further Comments: Taking a shortcut through a car park and past an office block, this witness looked up to see a police officer in 1940s uniform with a gasmask case slung over his arm. The officer was floating. The witness froze briefly in terror before taking haste.

Christ's College, Cambridge.

Mr Round

Location: Cambridge - Christ's College, Mulberry Tree in Garden
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Midnight on nights of the full moon (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A tall, elderly gentleman wearing a beaver hat, Round is said to have murdered the only doctor who had the skill to save his dying girlfriend - thus his ghost walks the grounds in the area around the mulberry tree in regret.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Dr Butts, Dark Mark on Throat

Location: Cambridge - Corpus Christi College
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Easter 1904, onwards (Butts), lover unknown
Further Comments: Doctor Butts took his life on Easter Sunday 1632 (found hanging by his garters in his room), after suffering from what now would be identified as depression. The Doctor has appeared several times during the early 20th century; described as being dressed in white, having long hair and a gash around his neck. The story goes that an exorcism was attempted, but it failed. The kitchen of the building is reputedly haunted by the lover of Dr Spencer's daughter - he suffocated in a cupboard while hiding from the Doctor.

Open Window

Location: Cambridge - Eagle public house
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Window still present, poltergeist late 1970s?
Further Comments: One story says a window in the upper part of the pub is cursed; if it is ever closed then ill fortune follows. Like so many other pubs, the site was also once home to a poltergeist, and is also said to be haunted by the ghosts of two Second World War airmen.

Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Heavy Stamping Footsteps

Location: Cambridge - Emmanuel College
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: September 2020
Further Comments: Rumoured to have been a suicide victim, the stamping footsteps of the deceased plagued several families that lived there over a period of years. The original building no longer stands, and it was said that the replacement had yet to yield any phantom footsteps, until 2020 when a student tweeted that he had heard someone walking around the empty site.

Stone lions outside Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Animated Stone Lions Drink from the Gutter

Location: Cambridge - Fitzwilliam Museum
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Midnight (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: On the stroke of midnight, the lions that stand outside the Fitzwilliam Museum leave their posts to drink from the gutters a few meters away. Other sources say they disappear inside the building they guard.

Witch

Location: Cambridge - Former home on site of former Woolworth's shop
Type: Other
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom witch was reputedly haunting a building which was demolished and replaced with Woolworth's.

Grey Lady on Staircase

Location: Cambridge - Girton College, Taylor Knob Staircase
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late 1800s
Further Comments: The Grey Lady was seen in the late nineteenth century but has not been seen since. She is rumoured to be Miss Taylor, a young girl who died before starting Girton. The college was also briefly home to a Roman Centurion when first built, though little has been heard from this soldier since.

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Pale Yellow Head without Ears

Location: Cambridge - Sidney Sussex College
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. A spectral pale-yellow head without ears was apparently spotted floating around Chapel Court in 1967 by John Emslie. The head is said to be that of Cromwell; his skull was finally laid to rest under the college's antechapel in 1960, its exact location a secret. As far as I can tell, the head was only encountered once, although around the same time other students were said to have experienced cold spots and the smell of rotting meat. The other ghost reputed to haunt the site, somewhat lacklustre compared to Cromwell, is that of an elderly University Don dressed in grey who moves from this campus towards Christ's College.

St. Johns College, Cambridge.

College Cat

Location: Cambridge - St. Johns College
Type: ABC
Date / Time: November 1996
Further Comments: Both a caretaker and the groundsman saw a massive black cat on the grounds. It has been speculated the creature was the so-called 'Fen Tiger', a large cat-like cryptid for which sightings around Cambridgeshire date back at least 30 years.

Sounds of Murder

Location: Cambridge - Sweet Shop, East Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: A sweet shop was supposed to be haunted by the sounds of screaming from someone being murdered with an axe. As a side note, around the same time two other shops along the road were also said to be haunted, although one had been demolished and the other was empty and run down.

Old Man

Location: Cambridge - The Haunted Bookshop
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: A phantom old man is reputed to haunt the basement of this bookshop.

Flying Bird

Location: Cambridge - Unnamed site, Storey's Way
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late 1970s?
Further Comments: A black bird would be seen flying through glass without smashing it. The site was also haunted by a man wearing a white coat.