The Paranormal Database

Headless Dog

Location: St Peter Port (Guernsey) - Ville-au-Roi
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A large black headless dog was said to patrol this road at night. Those brave enough to strike out at the hound hit nothing but air.

Headless Horseman

Location: St Saviour (Guernsey) - Road between Le Gron and Les Piques
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Weather Dependent: Moonlit nights
Further Comments: The reason for this horseman dashing along the road is long forgotten.

Lady Matthias

Location: Stackpole Elidor (Dyfed) - Stackpole Court (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A headless coachman driving headless horses pulling a headless lady in a coach would travel around the former court building. The woman in the coach, named as Lady Matthias, was exorcised many years prior to the demolition of the building.

Headless Lass

Location: Stainmore (Cumbria) - Stainmore Pass
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1937
Further Comments: A driver stuck in snow on this pass went for a quick walk on the moorland while waiting for help. He reported seeing a headless woman sitting upon a white horse. A legend claims this to be a Norman landowner's daughter. She was kidnapped and killed by a Saxon chieftain.

Teenager

Location: Staithes (North Yorkshire) - Boulby Cliff
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This young woman was killed in 1807 when the cliff path gave way, a large, heavy rock crushing her skull. Her headless shade still walks the path as it once was, several metres out from the current one.

Headless Nectan

Location: Stoke (Devon) - Church
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The church is built on the location where St Nectan had his head chopped off - he bent down and stuck it back on his neck before walking off!

Headless Woman

Location: Stokesley (North Yorkshire) - Lady Cross (road where a junction leading to Broughton/Ayton forms)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Nineteenth century?
Further Comments: This junction was once thought to be a place which drew evil from all around. One witness was followed by a headless woman who burnt bright with fire, while another man came across a pale woman upon a white horse; she rode alongside him for a while before vanishing.

Flaming Carriage

Location: Stokesley (North Yorkshire) - Tweddell's Stripe
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-nineteenth century
Further Comments: Surrounded by fields, this narrow path would have been quite spooky, especially if one encountered the entity which was said to haunt it. A phantom flaming carriage contained a headless woman would move at breakneck speeds, drawn by a team of six greyhounds. Why? No one knows.

Headless Horseman

Location: Stourton (Wiltshire) - Road in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 31 January (reoccurring)
Further Comments: This headless horseman travels with a large black hound. The man is said to have broken his neck after being thrown from his horse, trying to travel from Wincanton Market to Stourton in less than seven minutes.

Headless Page Boy

Location: Stowford (Devon) - Hayne Manor
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: Prior to death of owner
Further Comments: The boy was murdered by a butler on the site after he caught the older man stealing some plates - the young shade now appears with his head under the arm, warning of impending death. A wish hound has also been reported around the area.

Outline of Coach

Location: Stroud (Gloucestershire) - Road running alongside Rodborough Common, and apartments built near Rodborough Manor
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s, September 2013
Further Comments: A couple out walking in the 1970s watched in amazement as the ghostly outline of a horseless coach passed them. In 2013, a group of friends watched as an old fashioned car silently moved by. No driver could be seen and as they tried to follow, it vanished. Other witnesses have seen the phantom, and others have reported headless horsemen or of hearing galloping.

Steam Engine

Location: Stroud (Gloucestershire) - Woodchester Mansion, near the town
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2001, and 14 December 2019
Further Comments: A film crew spending a night in the building in 2001 reported loud disembodied banging that climaxed as if the sounds of a stream train charged through the house. The house is also reported to be haunted by a white lady, and the park surrounding the building is home to a Roman soldier, a figure resembling a monk, two American servicemen in Second World War uniforms, a headless horse and a dwarf which somersaults along the driveway. In 2019, a witness watched a horse and carriage driven by a man wearing a tall Victorian hat pass through a locked gate.

Lancaster Pilot

Location: Strubby (Lincolnshire) - Second World War RAF base
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This decapitated shade nicknamed 'Strubby' is the result of a Lancaster bomber crash near the hangar area during the Second World War.

Headless Man

Location: Sutton Coldfield (West Midlands) - New Hall Hotel and Wylde Green Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1820s onwards
Further Comments: This headless figure is thought to have been a local man mistakenly found guilty for being a Jacobite spy. The man was executed, and his head left in an oak tree where it remained until the 1820s - the tree was cut down and the skull rediscovered. Since then, the headless phantom is said to walk around the area (or the head rolls around looking for its body, depending on the source).

Headless Woman

Location: SW1 (Greater London) - Cockspur Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1975
Further Comments: A taxi driver watched a decapitated woman cross the road in front of him, vanishing once reaching the pavement. The figure is thought to be the same entity that haunts St James's Park.

Nellie Melba

Location: SW4 (Greater London) - Bingo hall along Clapham High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1973
Further Comments: Nellie fell from the roof of this former theatre, after climbing to the roof in a drunken haze. Her shade, headless, was reportedly seen by some staff members near the area of the former stage.

Headless Dog

Location: Swaledale (North Yorkshire) - Humpbacked bridge leading to Ivelet
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The appearance of this headless hound denoted a forthcoming tragedy.

Black Coach

Location: Talland (Cornwall) - Bocaddon Moor
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1731
Further Comments: This area of moorland was haunted by a black carriage pulled by two black, headless mares. The entity was never seen again after the Reverend Doidge exorcised the entity.

William Doggett

Location: Tarrant Gunville (Dorset) - Eastbury (house ruins)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Having borrowed large amounts of money to build the house, William Doggett committed suicide when he realised he could never pay off the loan. Doggett's ghost was heard walking around the house and blamed for opening and closing doors. It was also seen, headless, driving a coach in the grounds.

A headless ghost.

Cromwellian Victim

Location: Tarvin (Cheshire) - Bridle path near The Headless Woman inn, running from Hockenhull Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: An old servant woman was decapitated by agents of Cromwell, after she refused to hand over the location of her master's fortune. The woman's ghost made so many appearances that they named the nearby public house after the entity.

Lady Howard

Location: Tavistock (Devon) - Fitzford House driveway, heading towards Okehampton
Type: Shuck
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Lady Howard is said to have poisoned two of her four husbands, and now takes the form of a large black dog with a single eye which departs the driveway of Fitzford House, followed by a carriage pulled by headless horses, heading towards Okehampton Castle. Once they reach their destination, Lady Howard plucks a single blade of grass and then returns home, doomed to repeat the action until there is no grass left and she is released.

Judge John Glanville

Location: Tavistock (Devon) - Kilworthy House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A ruthless man, Judge Glanville condemned his own daughter to death for murdering her husband. Her ghost is also reported to appear in the building and its grounds, headless.

Drake

Location: Tavistock (Devon) - Road between town and Plymouth
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Pulled by black headless horses, Sir Frances Drake drives a dark hearse down these roads whenever his drum is heard to beat (see Yelverton (Devon) entry).

Headless Group

Location: Tenby (Dyfed) - Between Tenby and Sampson Cross
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Every night (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A headless team of horses driven by a headless coachman carries a headless lady in a coach along this road every night. As they reach the crossroads known as Sampson Cross, some ten miles from their starting point, they all disappear in a large explosion. Some people believe the entities have been laid, and now rest in a nearby lake.

Headless Horseman

Location: Thaxted (Essex) - Gibbets Cross, crossroads
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A local farmer told his friends that he watched a headless horseman sitting upon a white steed pass by this crossroads.