The Paranormal Database

Charles Manford

Location: St Andrews - Byre Theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Though never seen, the non-threatening presence of the former owner is often felt or heard and is considered reassuring. The ghost moved with the theatre after it was pulled down in 1970 and relocated under half a kilometre down the road.

Archbishop Hamilton

Location: St Andrews - Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A supporter of Mary Queen of Scots, Hamilton was arrested and hanged. His shade returned to this castle (though he was neither caught nor executed here).

White Woman

Location: St Andrews - Cathedral
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This pale, lost shade could belong to one of the mummified bodies that were removed from a nearby tower in the mid-nineteenth century. A monk has been seen on the staircase, offering to help anyone struggling to ascend the tower.

Jock the Piper

Location: St Andrews - Cliffs close to golf course
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Likely nineteenth century
Further Comments: Jock vanished into a cave along the cliffs never to be seen again. He is said to be heard or seen along the cliffs, a gust of cold wind denoting his presence. Encountering the entity is said to bring ill fortune. Some credence was given to the story in 1946, when workmen accidently discovered a secret passage that headed towards the coast. A blockage prevented the men from venturing too far along the route.

A ghostly white lady in a cave.

Secret Passage

Location: St Andrews - Close to The Pends Gateway
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1880
Further Comments: Spencer Ashton claimed a strange figure took him into a cave along an unidentified beach and through a tunnel which eventually led to The Pends. During the underground walk, Ashton spotted a ghostly white lady and a line of marching skeletons. Before parting ways, the strange figure gave Ashton a tiny gold cup that bestowed him good fortune for the rest of his days.

Thomas Plater

Location: St Andrews - Former Dormitory
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth century
Further Comments: Plater was said to have remained earthbound after his death, cursed after brutally murdering Prior Robert of Montrose before evening prayer.

John Knox.

Knox

Location: St Andrews - General area
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: 1570
Further Comments: John Knox was banished from St Andrews after he raised the Devil. The event was supposedly witnessed by Knox's servant Richard Bannatyne, who became insane and died shortly after.

Something Terrible

Location: St Andrews - Hospitum Novum (only the gateway currently remains?)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1893
Further Comments: The entity which haunted the New Inns, reputedly built to receive Princess Magdalene, wife of James V, was so upsetting that the building was destroyed.

Giant's Stone

Location: St Andrews - Large stone near Mount Melville
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown if still present
Further Comments: Outraged at having the steeple of a church at St Andrews ruining his view, a giant living at Drumcarrow Craig tried to throw a rock at the structure. He missed and the rock fell short, remaining on the mount.

Meeting Place

Location: St Andrews - Lausdree Castle (likely a pseudonym or a fictional place (and story))
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Likely pre-twentieth century
Further Comments: A family butler claimed that the castle was a hotbed of hauntings and was a meeting point for many ghosts and ghouls. The rooms beneath the castle had to be boarded up, as anyone who tried to explore the cellars never returned.

Chapel

Location: St Andrews - North Bell Street (now Greyfriars Garden)
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: A slightly dubious source claimed that as a man named Allan turned the corner of this street, he could see the large chapel (which had not existed for many years). Allan entered the building in time to see a monk being decapitated by an assailant. Allan then found himself sitting on a nearby wall with a grinning skull by his feet. The skull briefly gnashed its teeth before flying into the sky and vanishing.

Pure White Monster

Location: St Andrews - Off the coast close to the castle
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 01 November 1903
Further Comments: Fishermen spotted a pure white creature swimming eastwards close to the castle. The creature was four foot (1.2 metres) wide with only twelve foot (3.7 metres) of its width visible at any one time. A flock of seagulls and two fishermen followed the creature, but it eventually escaped.

Toppled Ornaments

Location: St Andrews - Pitmilly manor house (demolished 1967)
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Pre 1947
Further Comments: Captain JW Jeffrey reported his home to be haunted by an entity that removed pictures from the walls, pushed over ornaments, and moved furniture around. Fires that simultaneously broke out in several rooms were attributed to the ghost, a 'green lady', although the case sounds much more poltergeist-like.

Stout Figure

Location: St Andrews - Private residence built on/near Greyfriars Priory
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century?
Further Comments: A letter in the Sunday Post from a reader discussed his old home in St Andrews haunted by a stout man wearing a blue/grey hooded habit. The writer described the entity as friendly, and it would normally appear as the reader prepared to go to bed.

An old image of a witch being dunked in a water, circa 1613.

Home

Location: St Andrews - Small knoll close to the Martyr's Monument, and nearby Witch Lake
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Fairies were once thought to live around the knoll, which local legend says was also used as a site to burn witches if they survived their dunking at nearby Witch Lake.

Bodach Glas

Location: St Andrews - St Andrews' Golf Course
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Prior to death
Further Comments: A nobleman playing golf on the course stopped midgame, claiming to have seen the Bodach Glas, or grey haired man, which warned of impending death in his family. He died later that night.

Robert de Montrose

Location: St Andrews - St Rule's Tower
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth century
Further Comments: Prior Robert was stabbed in the back by a monk before being thrown off the top of the tower. The crime was spectrally repeated for many years.

Nun

Location: St Andrews - The Pends
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Folklore says this road was haunted by a woman who mutilated her own face rather than be forced into marriage. She later became a nun, and it was in these garments her ghost was said to walk carrying a lantern.

Pedlar

Location: St Andrews - Unidentified cellar along South Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A murdered pedlar was said to have taken up haunting a cellar along this street, brushing an icy hand across the cheek of visitors.

Coach

Location: St Andrews Bay - West Sands Road, and general area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather Dependent: Stormy weather
Further Comments: This spectral coach and four is seen passing through the area, vanishing in a puff of blue smoke and leaving only the reek of sulphur.

Meeting Place

Location: St Monans (aka St Monance) - Calliard Hill
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Witches, wizards, kelpies and other creatures that go bump in the night would congregate on this hilltop at midnight. They would victimise travellers in the area, ensuring they became lost (or dead, if feeling particularly vindictive).

Baff Barefoot

Location: St Monans (aka St Monance) - Grangemuir (original building no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-nineteenth century
Further Comments: The ghost resident in this property could be heard running around the site, the sound of naked footsteps slapping on the floors giving the spirit his name. The building was burnt to the ground in the early nineteenth century and Baff did not reappear once it was rebuilt.

Fisherwoman

Location: St Monans (aka St Monance) - Newark Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: August 2015
Further Comments: A photograph taken by Lenny Low was claimed to contain the ghost of a fisherwoman, although the image may have caught a real person or a case of pareidolia.

Brownie

Location: Strathmiglo - Strathmiglo Castle
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This invisible entity lived in the castle and was only detectible when it stole food from the pantry.

There's Gold in Them Hills

Location: Tayport - Tower Hill
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A chest of gold was said to have been buried somewhere around the summit of the hill.