The Paranormal Database

Pilot

Location: Kingham (Oxfordshire) - Woodland near Kingham Hill School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s, mid-2000s
Further Comments: In his autobiography, Guy Pratt mentions that he witnessed a ghost while at the school. Although Guy does not go into detail, he wrote that a piece of folklore stated a RAF pilot crashed nearby but had never been found. During the 2000s, stories continued to be told, with the addition of a big cat that had escaped Cotswold Wildlife Park (although no evidence could be found of the creature's existence).

Suicidal Servant

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Beckett University, Headingley campus
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former hospital, this campus was named by local press as being haunted by several ghosts, including a servant who threw themselves down a stairwell and something which would open and close doors.

Unhappy Butler

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Carnegie College
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This fellow took his own life when he realised that his mistress would never love him. His body was found at the bottom of the large spiral staircase, and it is the same area that he still haunts.

Man in Jeans

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Copperfields College School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1997 onwards
Further Comments: Students and a dinner lady watched a man in a checked shirt and jeans sitting in the main hall wave and vanish without warning. Minor poltergeist-like activity has also been reported.

Dark Figure

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Devonshire Hall, University of Leeds
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 09 March 2025, around 04:30h
Further Comments: This witness awoke to see a shadowy man standing by the doorway who then started to approach. As the figure reached the foot of the bed, the witness kicked out, the figure vanishing just before the kick made contact. The witness later asked around the hall to see if anyone else had seen a ghost, but no one had.

Lift Travellers

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - St James's University Hospital
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: A member of staff would often use a lift in the building, sharing with occupants who would travel upwards only to vanish just before the doors opened.

Laughing

Location: Leigh (Greater Manchester) - Leigh College, gym
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This shade, which moves the climbing rope when in use, has been heard laughing and telling people to 'get off my foot'.

Footsteps

Location: Liverpool (Merseyside) - Unnamed Ladies' School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1900s
Further Comments: A classroom in this school was locked up after staff and students heard heavy footsteps walking in the adjacent room but could find no one within. Dust on the floor was undisturbed. A local story said that a murder had been committed in the room many years previous. Before the building was taken over as a school, stories of ghosts were rumoured.

Strange Figure

Location: Lowestoft (Suffolk) - Roman Hill Middle School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: During a particularly misty day, a pupil at the school reported seeing a figure which walked through the wall of the school.

Evil Face

Location: Malahide (County Dublin) - Old school hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth century
Further Comments: A cleric who would occasionally sleep her instead of travelling home to Dublin awoke one night to see two hands open the curtains and an evil looking face appear between them, before the drapes were closed again. The cleric leapt out of bed and searched the room but could find no one.

John Dee

Location: Manchester (Greater Manchester) - Chetham School, Audit Room
Type: Other
Date / Time: Circa 1595
Further Comments: Doctor Dee worked from this room, and a scorch mark on a piece of wood is reputed to have been left after Dee was visited by the Devil.

Samuel

Location: Manchester (Greater Manchester) - Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2008-2012
Further Comments: The ghost of Australian-born, British philosopher Samuel Alexander was said to have been spotted by teaching staff in the hall which bears his name.

Merlin's Grave

Location: Marlborough (Wiltshire) - Merlin's Mound, Marlborough College
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: Merlin the Wizard is said to be buried under the hill which bears his name.

Suicidal Student

Location: Maynooth (County Kildare) - Maynooth College, Rhetoric House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid nineteenth century
Further Comments: After two students committed suicide in room 2 of the building, and a third leapt from the window after believing an evil spirit was trying to take over his body, someone summoned a priest to spend the night. In the morning the priest was found a gibbering wreck; fear had turned his hair white.

The poet Samuel Bamford.

Burnt Flag

Location: Middleton (Greater Manchester) - Old Grammar School
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Samuel Bamford wrote that the school flag had a hole in the shape of a burnt hoofprint. Students had summoned the Devil and had to be saved by the school's headmaster who manged to exorcise the fallen angel, although the ritual damaged some of the building.

Servant?

Location: Mirfield (West Yorkshire) - Hollybank (was Roe Head School)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This phantom is said to be at home behind an attic door, close to the spot where a servant may have fallen to their death.

Leering Woman

Location: Mosborough (South Yorkshire) - Former school grounds (no longer present)
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: July 1974, evening
Further Comments: Two people out walking spotted a woman running in the opposite direction. She wore a long flowing dress, had long hair, and took massive strides, as if her legs were too long for her body. As she ran, the woman looked in the direction of the witnesses, revealing a leering expression and no eyes...

Monk

Location: Newbury (Berkshire) - Boarding School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: September 1978
Further Comments: A boy at the school awoke to see a monk standing at the foot of the bed. The boy briefly looked away, and when he looked back, the monk had vanished. Thirty years later the witness came across another person who had encountered the monk in the 1960s, while in the same dormitory.

Big Bertha

Location: Newport (Gwent) - University of Wales College, Caerleon Campus
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Bertha Ramsey, a 6 foot tall matron at the campus, was found dead at the base of a set of stairs in 1962 - it was unsure whether she tripped or if she was pushed. Her ghost has been seen and is blamed for playing with the elevators after dark. Another ghost observed on site is that of a Roman centurion, as the building was constructed on the site of an ancient burial site.

Nun

Location: Northampton (Northamptonshire) - Notre Dame Convent School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former teacher at the school, this shade now walks knee deep across a hall that was raised after her death.

Stephanie

Location: Northwich (Cheshire) - Primary School in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A local myth tells of a young girl named Stephanie died in a fire (or a car crash, or run over by a steamroller, depending on the story); her ghost returned to the school and could be heard screaming 'Mummy, mummy, nooo...!'

Grey Figure

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Queens Medical Centre - University Hospital
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s onwards
Further Comments: A figure wearing a grey robe has been spotted wandering around at night, though vanishes when people start to look for the figure. Nurses who sleep in one of the rest rooms have been woken up by a black nurse - no nurse matching her description works at the centre.

Lady in Black

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - The Adam's Building, now part of New College Nottingham
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s onwards
Further Comments: This former factory is said to be home to a phantom elderly woman in black clothing who walks the upper floors.

Stone Shower

Location: Oakham (Rutland) - Oakham School
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa 1971
Further Comments: Matthew Manning claimed in his book The Link that the school had a poltergeist outbreak which focused on him, resulting in moving bunkbeds and showers of stones and pieces of concrete manifesting from nowhere.

Wolves

Location: Ogmore Vale (Mid Glamorgan) - Forest near the former Abba school
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 1990 onwards
Further Comments: A local has claimed that several people in the area have spotted wolves stalking the forest. There is an unsubstantiated report that a boy disappeared in the woodland and was eventually found torn apart.