The Paranormal Database

Soldier

Location: Pirton - High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2011
Further Comments: A medium working for the programme Greatest Haunts said that she had encountered a phantom soldier walking along the high street.

Goring the Cavalier

Location: Pirton - Highdown
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 15 June (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Beheaded at Highdown, the phantom Royalist known as Goring leaves Pirton once a year and travels to Hitchin.

Old Lady

Location: Potters Bar - The Old Manor Public House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s?
Further Comments: A phantom elderly lady is said to walk through the restaurant, while the staircase in the same area is haunted by a little girl who plays there. Staff report a strange atmosphere in the area after closing.

Grey Lady

Location: Redbourn - Bull Inn (closed 2015, now a Co-op store)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s - present
Further Comments: The Blue Room of the inn housed the ghost of a pneumonia victim, which manifested as a grey lady, disembodied voices, and bedclothes being pulled from the bed at night. Landlord Howard Upton was aware of these occurrences and allegedly became part of them after his own death in a traffic accident in 1978; moving objects and unexplained ''touching' in the former bar and cellar areas are attributed to Upton, rather than the occupant of the Blue Room.

Overflow

Location: Redbourn - Womere Brook
Type: Legend
Date / Time: When danger is imminent
Further Comments: This body of water is reported to overflow when famine threatens the area.

Devil's Lock

Location: Rickmansworth - Grand Union Canal lock
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Midnight
Further Comments: A piece of nineteenth century folklore said the Devil in the form of a man would sit on the lock gate at midnight, and only heaven could help anyone who tried to use his service during this time.

Hunt

Location: Rickmansworth - Lord Clarendon's Grove Park (now hotel) grounds
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Former owner Lord Doneraile converted a chapel into a kitchen. He was condemned to ride a phantom horse and, together with ghostly hounds, pursue a phantom fox around the park.

Running

Location: Rickmansworth - Private detached house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2006-2009
Further Comments: A child's disembodied footsteps could be heard running around the master bedroom of this property - an attempt to record it using a video camera failed when the equipment turned itself off. The young child of the occupant said he could see a man in the corner of a room, although his mother could see nothing, while the cleaner said she could feel a friendly male presence.

Green Light

Location: Rickmansworth - Skies over the town
Type: UFO
Date / Time: February 2010
Further Comments: Two police officers watched a bright green light quickly pass over the town and disappear over the horizon.

Thin Man

Location: Royston - Banyers House Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twenty-first century
Further Comments: A ghost by the name of Henry haunts this site, and may have been the tall thin man wearing a brown suit seen briefly by both the manager and the owner standing by the bar. Room 4 is visited by strange sounds and a soldier in a peaked cap. Other ghosts reportedly frequenting the area are a monk, a caped man, and a woman in a bonnet.

B-17 Crew?

Location: Royston - Former RAF Bassingbourne
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s, 1994, and 2004
Further Comments: There were a handful of reports of a phantom aircrew made during the 1960s, at this base once used by the USAAF. The B-17 may have been seen in 1994, moving silently overhead. More recently, a man who lived on the site of the former airfield reported seeing a pair of legs in dress uniform which manifested in his home, and the sounds of aircraft starting up.

Shattering Mirrors

Location: Royston - Henrick's Hairdressing salon
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2004
Further Comments: Mirrors have been known to fly from the walls and the radio changes stations at will, in this haunted salon. A psychic blamed the former owner of the building who slit his own throat.

Shadows

Location: Royston - Royston Cave
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Shadowy figures have been briefly spotted in this cave.

Caretaker

Location: Royston - Royston Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: A former schoolhouse, the museum is said to be haunted by the wife of a Victorian caretaker, who was found dead in the building's cellar.

William Blake's Satan, circa 1795.

The Old Brick Mover

Location: Sarratt - Church
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Eleventh century
Further Comments: The Devil was said to have moved the bricks from the church's original build site just as quickly as the builders could lay them. The builders finally gave up and constructed the church where it stands today.

Well Dressed Man

Location: Sarratt - Rose Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A figure seen in a bedroom had a good quality blue coat, but sadly missed his head.

Swallowed House

Location: Sawbridgeworth - Manor House, Says Gardens (exact location not known)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Two sisters who lived an 'evil life', together with their house, were swallowed up by unknown forces.

Sitting Airman

Location: Sawbridgeworth - Former RAF Sawbridgeworth
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: This lonely airman sits by the side of the road, patiently waiting for a lift which has never yet arrived.

Man-Like Monster

Location: South Mimms - Bridge along Wash Lane
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Circa late nineteenth / early twentieth century
Further Comments: A man crossing the bridge watched as a human-like creature rose from the ground and leapt over the bridge, vanishing into the mist. The witness fled.

Praying Man

Location: South Mimms - Church and vicarage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1920s
Further Comments: A man seen praying in the church stood up and walked through a closed door leading to the vestry. The Reverend Allen Hay also reported that he would often wake at 3am and felt a presence in the vicarage, though he was convinced the ghost was friendly.

Headless Man

Location: South Mimms - Field close to the village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1930s
Further Comments: The area where a dead man was found quickly became known as being haunted by a headless man and the occasional glowing light.

Flagging Figure

Location: South Mimms - Unnamed road in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Spring 1935
Further Comments: Several motorists (and a vicar on his bike) encountered a figure who stood on the roadside flagging down travellers, only to vanish seconds later. More generally, the roads in the area were once said to be haunted by the ghost of Dick Turpin.

Turpin

Location: South Mimms - Wash Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa late nineteenth / early twentieth century
Further Comments: The ghost of Dick Turpin was said to haunt this lane.

Procession of Monks

Location: St Albans - Abbey grounds
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A witness working on the site watched a short line of monks walk through a stone wall. It is also said that music can sometimes be heard in the early hours of the morning.

John Beckett

Location: St Albans - Batchwood Hall (currently a nightclub)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 2000s
Further Comments: Killed while running into the burning building to save his wife during a fire in 1895, John's shade still searches for his wife's missing body. During a fire in 1995, witnesses escaping the fire claimed to have seen a phantom woman with a shovel, scattering burning coals over the floor.