The Paranormal Database

Misty Horseman

Location: Ruyton (Shropshire) - Church
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Midnight (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Sometimes, around midnight, a thick mist rolls into the churchyard. Soon after, a headless horseman rides in, vanishing into the mist, heading towards an old castle keep.

Funeral

Location: Saint Martin (Guernsey) - Lanes around the area of Le Hurel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: All members of this ghostly funeral procession were said to be headless.

Salisbury's former Debenhams.

Duke of Buckingham

Location: Salisbury (Wiltshire) - Debenhams' department store (no longer operational)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Executed in the fifteenth century, the headless apparition of the duke terrified a British Telecom employee working on the site - he refused to re-enter the building.

Coach & Four

Location: Sandford on Thames (Oxfordshire) - Fields around the village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 24 December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Driven by a headless horseman, a coach moving at breakneck speed pulled by four horses tear around fields near the village on the night before Christmas.

An old woodcut of a deer standing in a wooded area.

Black Hounds

Location: Savernake Forest (Wiltshire) - General area
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The forest is reported to be home of several black dogs which bring ill fortune to any witnesses. There are also stories of a ghostly white deer which darts between the trees, a headless woman riding on horseback, and a coach and horses which leaves the forest and heads towards a nearby farm.

Headless Woman

Location: Scarborough (North Yorkshire) - Three Mariners (formerly an inn)
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This headless phantom would appear as a warning to any sailors staying in the building not to go to sea - those who did see her but ignored the warnings normally drowned.

The two figures dropped a body in the river.

Body Movers

Location: SE1 (Greater London) - Unnamed inn, West Street, close to Fleet River (entire area redeveloped, no trace of inn remains)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early nineteenth century
Further Comments: A clergyman heard screams coming from the inn and watched two people emerge from the site carrying a headless body, and head towards the nearby river. After throwing the corpse into the water, the people vanished. The same spot of the river was also said to be haunted by a woman with a slit throat.

Lord John Angerstein

Location: SE10 (Greater London) - Trafalgar Road to Vanbrugh Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Lord John's coach, pulled by four headless horses and driven by the lord himself, is said to leave Trafalgar Road and return to his former home on Vanbrugh Road.

Headless Worker

Location: SE19 (Greater London) - Tunnel between Crystal Palace and Gipsey Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This poor rail worker lost his head in an accident while working on a section of track here - the ghost remains on the material plane searching for the lost item.

Rings

Location: Sheffield (South Yorkshire) - Dead Man's Lane (aka Dead Lane), Ecclesall (lane may have been renamed, but in Greystones area)
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Nineteenth century?
Further Comments: An overgrown lane in the village (now a Sheffield suburb) was said to be home to fairies, with distinct fairy circles spotted in the grass. A headless woman also haunted the lane.

Headless Monk

Location: Shepperton (Surrey) - General area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: In life, this monk eloped to the village and began living with a local lass. His brothers were less than happy with the breaking of vows, so tracked him down and decapitated him. The headless ghost is said to run through the village, trying to escape ecclesiastic law.

Sheringham coastline, Norfolk.

Shock

Location: Sheringham (Norfolk) - From the sea
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The black dog known as Shock to residents of the town would emerge from the sea and run up the hills. The entity was said to be headless, with white cloth covering the stump.

Headless Sister

Location: Sherston (Wiltshire) - Pinkney Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The house connected to the park is home to a skull of a woman - it is believed to belong to the ghost of a young girl who carries her head under her arm, killed by her own sister. Another legend connected to the park is the 'Elm-Ash' tree, a single tree comprising of both types of wood given in its name - it was said to have grown from the grave of a male suicide into which two wooden stakes were thrust to ensure he did not return.

White Woman

Location: Shipton Gorge (Dorset) - Private residence along Dorchester Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A headless woman in a white gown was said to haunt this location.

Peasant Girl

Location: Silverstone (Northamptonshire) - Whittlebury Forest (and site of the former woodland)
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A knight took his own life after having his love rejected by a peasant girl. Lying in his own blood, the knight cursed her, and she died soon after. The peasant's ghost remains in the forest. Another entity reported to haunt the area is the wild hunt, complete with headless horseman (thought by some to be the aforementioned knight).

Headless on Headless

Location: Skipsea (East Riding of Yorkshire) - Roads around town
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The headless highwayman seen around this area rides a headless horse. A road on a hill south of the town is haunted by a woman (who may also be headless) wearing black, who quickly vanishes just before reaching a hill.

Poisoned Wife

Location: Skipsea (East Riding of Yorkshire) - Skipsea Castle, Albermarle Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Headless woman on moonlit nights (reoccurring), others unknown
Further Comments: Drogo, a Baron from the eleventh century, poisoned his wife and fled abroad - she has been seen, headless and white, walking from the castle (or what remains of it) to a brook at the base, disappearing before reaching the bridge. She may be the same entity known as Awd Molly, who was once believed could be summoned if you walked around a certain pit in the area. Finally, depressions in the ground somewhere on the hill are supposed to belong to two warriors who killed each other in a dual - if filled, the ghosts of the fighters were said to return.

Silent Woman

Location: Slaithwaite (West Yorkshire) - Silent Woman public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The pub is named after the headless ghost that resides between the canal and a viaduct that carries the railway.

Headless Man

Location: Sneem (County Kerry) - Blackwater bridge, between village and Kenmare
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This bridge was the traditional haunt of a headless male figure. One legend says that the headless phantom was attacked by another ghost, although the outcome of the fight is not known.

Headless Man

Location: South Mimms (Hertfordshire) - 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.

Gun Hill, Southwold.

Headless Gunner killed by Exploding Cannon

Location: Southwold (Suffolk) - Gun Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: After losing his head when a cannon backfired, the soldier is reported to return occasionally to stand by the old guns that face the sea. There are also reports that fairies once camped in little tents on the hill.

Headless Raiders

Location: Spanish Head (Isle of Man) - The Chasms
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Twenty four soldiers sent to kill the king met their demise at this location. Their headless ghosts were said to have encountered and attacked a farmer looking for a lost sheep. The farmer passed out as the spirits' daggers touched his neck, and when he awoke, he found a red mark on his neck that remained with him for the rest of his life. Another, older, version of the story says the farmer heard his sheep being slaughtered and fled before the same thing happened to him.

Headless Kidnapper

Location: Spurstow (Cheshire) - Dead Man's Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A member of the Spurstow family was beheaded as a kidnap attempt that he had masterminded went wrong. His headless shade now walks along the road that the body was taken.

Chapel

Location: St Andrews (Fife) - 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.

Headless People

Location: St Peter Port (Guernsey) - Lane east of La Longue Rocque (aka Grande Pierre) (standing stone)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather Dependent: Dark winter nights
Further Comments: Several headless people are said to hurry up and down this lane during the winter months.