The Paranormal Database

Roman Army

Location: West Lulworth - Bindon Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The sound of a marching army and with horses was said to be heard here at on certain nights. When the ghosts were about, dogs cowered in fear and rabbits would not be seen.

Woman Wringing Hands

Location: West Lulworth - Budkin Trees at West Hill (locations may no longer exist)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A woman wringing her hands was said to walk around this area.

Hare

Location: West Lulworth - Daggers Gate
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The hare that haunts this area is thought to be the ghost of a witch. In life, she enjoyed turning herself into a lepus. Another ghost at the gate was said to be a farmer murdered by a woman. For the crime she used a dagger, from which the gate takes its name.

Headless Driver

Location: West Lulworth - Lane along Coach Lane Gates (gates may no longer stand)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A ghostly coach pulled by horses and driven by a headless coachman reportedly travels along this lane. The coachman was said to have been decapitated during a highway robbery.

Thin Girl

Location: West Lulworth - Red Lion public house (no longer open)
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: 1920s
Further Comments: A sickly man staying at the pub encountered a ghostly thin girl who beckoned the man to follow him. The man refused and believed the encounter to be a warning about his own poor health. He died soon after.

Bloodied Ghost

Location: West Stafford - Local lane (exact location not known)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: September 1894
Further Comments: A party of ghost hunters patrolling an alleged haunted lane in the village encountered a white figure covered by a sheet. One member of the group urged the others to attack it, which they did using sticks and clubs. The ghost fell to the ground. Once the sheet was removed, it was realised the ghost was in reality a local man, who had to be taken to hospital for his fractured skull to be treated.

Pitch Forked Dog

Location: West Woodyates - Manor
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A farmhand discovered a dog laying in the hay - he poked it with his pitchfork, causing the entity to vanish. The sound of a coach has also been heard as it stops by the front of the house, though nothing is seen.

Raining Snails

Location: Weymouth - All over the area
Type: Other
Date / Time: Early seventeenth century
Further Comments: Small snail shells rained down in Weymouth, with people finding the coloured carapaces gathering in their hats as they walked.

Sea Shanties

Location: Weymouth - Boot Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: One owner of the inn reported hearing old sea shanties being sung at night in deserted rooms and heavy footsteps walking around. A seaman has also been reported, who vanishes without trace.

Weymouth promenade.

Horrid Old Woman

Location: Weymouth - Corner seat along promenade
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Visible only to a select few, one witness who spotted the old woman on a seat said she reeked of death. The witness's fiancee later sat in the exact spot and died of a heart attack.

Fisherman

Location: Weymouth - Golden Lion Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2023
Further Comments: A total of five ghosts are reputed to haunt the hotel; a fisherman who stands at the bar, two ladies who roam the landings, and another two women heard laughing in the courtyard. It is worth noting that the pub's website notes 'the ghosts do not bear much historical scrutiny', although more recently staff have reported spotting shadowy figures passing the side door and dance floor.

Nothe Fort, Weymouth.

White Figure

Location: Weymouth - Nothe Fort
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A mysterious apparition is said to walk along the parapets of this building.

Like a Sea-Horse

Location: Weymouth - Off coast
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 1990s and 1757?
Further Comments: A creature which had the top half of a sea-horse but with the bottom part silver and covered in fins was spotted here by one witness reportedly hesitant in speaking of the sighting until they came across an earlier account describing a similar creature.

Rapping

Location: Weymouth - Private residence, East Street
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa January 1861
Further Comments: An unidentified house featured in the press after attracting the attention of crowds of people wanting to experience the raps, shaking of doors and moving crockery that had begun to plague the site.

51 Vikings

Location: Weymouth - Ridgeway Hill, site of 2012 Olympics sailing centre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: July 2009
Further Comments: Self-professed psychics were quick to announce that the discovery of 51 bodies, most likely Vikings who were executed by Saxons in the tenth century, would lead to paranormal activity.

Portuguese Sailor

Location: Weymouth - Spice Ship public house, Preston
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: This ghostly sailor took the form of a poltergeist and created general mischief. The entity was blamed for phantom footsteps, setting off alarms and even pulling one landlord from his bed. Folklore said that the sailor had said to have become delirious and had jumped to his death from an upper window in the 1870s, although during the 1930s, a visiting medium claimed the man had been thrown from the window during a robbery.

Gertie

Location: Weymouth - Weymouth Golf Links
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 21 August 1959, evening
Further Comments: On this date a couple on the golf course witnessed a ghostly figure, who became known as Gertie the Golf Links Ghost. Three days later, some 500 people turned up to see the ghost, including several young people wearing sheets. Unsurprisingly, the ghost was not seen again.

Old Sword

Location: Whitchurch Canonicorum - Old Five Bells Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown if still present
Further Comments: An old sword was stored in a cupboard in this pub, with an old tale saying that if it were ever removed, the site would become haunted.

Talking Trees

Location: Whitcombe - Culliford Tree (also known as Came Wood)
Type: Other
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: A woman who planned to build a house on this barrow said that she changed her mind after hearing a voice talking to her, sounding as if it had come from the trees.

White Lady

Location: Wilton - Wilton House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1945
Further Comments: A Duty NCO of Southern Command, who used this house at the end of the Second World War, wrote that on one winter evening he spotted a woman in white holding a candle. The figure walked along a balcony before vanishing through a door.

Coffin

Location: Wimborne - B3078, close to Clapgate Junction
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A coffin has been spotted on the roadside here, though it disappears if looked at closely. Some believe it belongs to someone who committed suicide, denying them the right to be buried in a churchyard, being buried close to this spot instead. A phantom black horse is also said to haunt this area.

Shapeless Mass

Location: Wimborne - Barley Mow public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: The pub is haunted by an unearthly dark shape which hovers in the bar area. No one is too sure what exactly is it or what is represents.

Quarter Jack

Location: Wimborne - Church - West Tower
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Midnight
Further Comments: Quarter Jack sits within the West Tower and chimes the quarter hours. At midnight, he is said to climb down from the tower and wander the market town.

Clergyman

Location: Wimborne - Dickens House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1940s
Further Comments: This former man of the cloth is said to step out of a bricked up doorway wearing black and holding a bible.

Sobbing

Location: Wimborne - Griffin Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Around Christmas (reoccurring)
Further Comments: One room in the hotel is filled with sobbing around Christmas - some say the cries belong to a girl upset at her father's death. A grey haired woman in a brown skirt has also been reported in the hotel and was seen near Bedroom 4 during the 1940s.