Phantom Brides and Related Myths
Hovering Head
Location: Aberaeron (Dyfed) - Llanina House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghostly form of a severed head belonging to a murdered young bride reputedly hovers around this building. There are also reports of a phantom man whose clothes are saturated with water.
Mistletoe Bride
Location: Bawdrip (Somerset) - Rectory
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1940s
Further Comments: A grey lady that walks on the grass in front of the rectory is said to be the mistletoe bride (the nearby Knowle Hall one of several places in the UK that claims the legend as its own). Poltergeist activity has also been reported in the rectory in the past.
Newly Wed Bride
Location: Braemar (Aberdeenshire) - Braemar Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1980s
Further Comments: Convinced she had made a bad wife after waking up and finding her new husband gone, this girl leapt off the battlements to her death - unfortunately, her husband had only gone hunting without informing her. She now appears to others, not wanting them to make the same mistake.
White Woman with Mistletoe
Location: Bramshill (Hampshire) - Bramshill House (police college)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1980s
Further Comments: Not just home to the ghostly bride (who suffered the fate of hiding in a chest from her husband while playing hide and seek, only to become stuck and suffocate) who wakes people up who spend the night there, but also to a grey lady who haunts the library and a green man who hovers by the lake - it is reported that he has no legs. Finally, a man in a flannel suit was observed walking through a wall by a security guard in the 1970s.
Mistletoe Bough
Location: Brockdish (Norfolk) - Brockdish Hall
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The hall is one of several sites which is supposedly the site of the legend of the Mistletoe Bough - a bride who died on her wedding day after being locked in a chest during a game of hide and seek was found many years later in skeletal form.
Bride in White
Location: Castleton (Derbyshire) - Castle Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Left standing at the altar, this bride who never was now haunts the place where her reception should have been. A maid who saw her ran screaming from the building, while another witness said the ghost was cut off at the knee. A more recent ghost is that of a man in a blue pinstripe suit, seen by two different proprietors.
Bride in Black
Location: Chagford (Devon) - Whiddon Park Guest House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 10 July (reoccurring), last seen 1971
Further Comments: Murdered by a former suitor on her wedding day, this bride now returns on that fateful date. Dressed in black, she has been seen standing in the doorway of a bedroom.
Sarah
Location: Chester (Cheshire) - Thorntons Chocolate shop (was once House of Bewlay Tobacconist), Eastgate Street
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Stamping and thuds emanating from an empty room have been reported from this shop, as well as strange wailing. Lights flicker on and off, and doors open and close by an unseen hand. The source of the haunting is said to be Sarah, a jilted bride who hanged herself, though her presence and poltergeist activities are said to be 'friendly' in nature.
Woman in Wedding Dress
Location: Cullompton (Devon) - Manor House Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Said to frequent room 6, this bride was jilted at the altar, and still awaits her partner's return.
Bride Dressed in White
Location: Devizes (Wiltshire) - Three Crowns Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The bride committed suicide in the building after being jilted at the altar, and her pallid form has existed since.
Mistletoe Bough
Location: Exton (Rutland) - Exton Hall
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The decaying hall is one of several sites which is supposedly the site of the legend of the Mistletoe Bough - a bride who died on her wedding day after being locked in a chest during a game of hide and seek was found many years later in skeletal form.
Wedding Party
Location: Featherstone (Northumberland) - Route between Pynkinscleugh & Featherstone Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Once a year, date unknown
Further Comments: To celebrate a wedding, the guests, bride and groom went out hunting; it resulted in a fight that killed most of them, and now they all travel back to the castle once a year, covered in blood.
Pink Bride
Location: Kemnay (Aberdeenshire) - Burnett Arms Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Wearing a pink wedding dress, the ghost of a former owner named Maggie who died in 1934 is thought to haunt this hotel. A local legend said that two coffins were buried under the hotel, one containing Maggie's body and the other filled with her money, though an excavation under the building in 2008 found nothing.
The Bride
Location: King's Lynn (Norfolk) - Purfleet Quay
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman killed herself the day after being wed - her ghost loiters around the Purfleet area before screaming and throwing itself into the quay waters. Other screams, belonging to fighting soldiers, can also be heard in the area, during which the water runs red with blood.
Small Lady
Location: King's Lynn (Norfolk) - The Tudor Rose Hotel, 11 Nicholas Street
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Shortly after a wedding, the bride was stabbed to death by her new husband in the hotel. Since then, a short woman in a long white dress has been spotted and phantom footsteps heard.
Honeymooner
Location: Kingsbridge (Devon) - King's Arms Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This bride found herself alone after her husband ran away before their first night together - her shade still waits for his return.
Bride on Other's Photographs
Location: Lawford (Essex) - Church on the hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid twentieth century
Further Comments: Appearing on three wedding photographs (though none have been published to the author's knowledge), this ghostly bride is said to have died of a broken heart after discovering her husband to be had been killed on route to their wedding, after his horse had bolted. In addition, chanting has sometimes been heard coming from the church as it stands empty.
Bride
Location: Liverpool (Lancashire) - Royal Infirmary
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The old house which once stood here before the hospital was the scene of the ultimate wedding day disaster in which the bride fell to her death from an upper story window while her guests partied on below. Her shade has been reported by nurses in the newer building.
Water Horse House
Location: Loch Garve (Highland) - Underwater
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This freshwater monster had a house built for him and his mortal bride - the general area of the property is known as the water there never freezes because of the home's open fire!
Carrickogunnel
Location: Newmarket on Fergus (County Clare) - MacAulliffe's Castle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Holding a bright lantern to lure passing ships onto the rocks, the repulsive ghost of Carrickogunnel lurks around the castle. The other phantom found here is that of a bride who mysteriously vanished shortly after being married.
Bride
Location: Newton le Willows (Lancashire) - Willow Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman in white is said to be a bride who was murdered by her husband on their wedding night.
Silent Woman
Location: No fixed location (Greater London) - Railway line between London & Carlisle
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: Dressed in black and wearing a veil, this figure has been seen sitting quietly and disappearing without warning. She is believed to be a bride whose new husband had stuck his head out of a window and was decapitated. Found holding his body once they reached London, totally insane, her spirit has been making the journey since.
Jane Seymour
Location: Owslebury (Hampshire) - Marwell Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The Seymour family once owned this property, and Jane is thought to haunt the surrounding grounds. The shade of Anne Boleyn has also been reported loitering near a row of nearby yew trees. Finally, the hall is reputedly the location where the Mistletoe Bough bride story originated, with the chest still (?) being present today.
Newly Married
Location: Peebles (Borders) - Forest
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: One witness watched a man and woman in wedding attire run the forest and then vanish into thin air.
White Woman
Location: Pontefract (Yorkshire) - Town Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom woman who has been spotted on the staircase is reputed to be a bride who was killed in the hall.
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