The Paranormal Database

Sarscowe Lady

Location: Croston (Lancashire) - Gradwell's Farm, now a museum, and nearby road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1958
Further Comments: This woman fell in love with a monk from the site and threw herself in the well after being rejected - the forty foot drop into the water below killed her. Her shade was once hit by a bus on the nearby road; the driver was convinced he had hit a real person, though no body was found.

Former Workers

Location: Derby (Derbyshire) - Pickford's House Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A long dead gardener still walks along the lawns he once worked so hard on, while a woman haunts the kitchen. The child seen dancing in the house is thought to be a member of the Pickford family.

Mrs Cunningham

Location: Devizes (Wiltshire) - Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The Cunningham family donated their family home to the local council for adaptation into a museum, and since then an elder Cunningham matriarch has manifested in the building. It is unclear whether this is in protest or approval of their charitable act.

The Curate's Wife

Location: Didsbury (Lancashire) - Fletcher Moss Museum, was the Old Parsonage
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1865 (wife), late nineteenth century (others)
Further Comments: It was rumoured that a former curate was responsible for his wife's death in the property, but he disappeared before being questioned. Regardless, strange things would happen and drive out new occupants for years after the event. Later in the nineteenth century Rev Fletcher Moss documented bells in the building ringing for no reason and the sound of footsteps and of doors opening during the night.

Fear

Location: Donaghmore (County Laois) - Donaghmore Workhouse Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Some staff were said to avoid certain rooms in the museum, while visitors have reported cold spots, a sense of fear, and the feeling of being watched.

Maid

Location: Donington Le Heath (Leicestershire) - Donington le Heath Manor House Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Once owned by a friend of Guy Fawkes, this former manor house is reputed to be haunted by a ghost of a housemaid. A phantom man wearing a tall, brimmed hat is also said to have a home here and is thought to be from the seventeenth century.

Headless Woman

Location: Dorchester (Dorset) - Dorset County Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid 2010
Further Comments: The PIT (Paranormal Investigation Team) group claimed to have photographed two entities within the museum, Judge George Jeffreys and Mary Anning. The latter was headless in her picture.

Footsteps

Location: Dublin (County Dublin) - Kilmainham Gaol (former prison, now a museum)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: While being renovated, workers in this old gaol reported hearing strange footsteps. Other visitors have reported the feeling of being watched.

An old postcard of Dublin Museum.

Nineteenth Century Soldier

Location: Dublin (County Dublin) - National Museum of Ireland (was Collins Barracks)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: Several entities are said to exist at this former barracks, including a black shadowy figure and a soldier in nineteenth century uniform. Truck drivers have reported seeing figures in Napoleonic era uniforms burying the dead in Croppy Park, while visiting tourists said that they had watched soldiers in First World War uniforms, believing them to be a re-enactment group. Screams, panicked horses and gunfire have also been heard coming from the area.

Peter Denny

Location: Dumbarton (Dumbartonshire) - Denny Tank Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2009
Further Comments: Peter Denny, who died in 1895, was named as a ghostly suspect behind the haunting of this building, which mostly consisted of people feeling a 'presence'.

B17 Crew

Location: Duxford (Cambridgeshire) - Imperial War Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: The control tower is haunted by crew from a B17 which hit the building while attempting a landing. Other witnesses report hearing aircraft flying low overhead, though nothing can be seen, while hangar 5 is another paranormal hotspot.

London Stone

Location: EC4 (Greater London) - Opposite Cannon Street station, in the wall of 111 Cannon Street (as of 2016, moved to Museum of London)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: The London Stone is reputed to be the location from where the Romans calculated all distances in Britannia. Some believe that the stone is part of an altar constructed by Brutus as he founded London, and it is said: 'so long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish'.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Location: Edinburgh (Lothian) - Stevenson House (was a museum, now a private residence)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A phantom which has made the occasional appearance at this locale is named as former owner Robert Louis Stevenson.

Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh.

Laughter

Location: Edinburgh (Lothian) - Museum of Childhood, 42 High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Laughing, crying and whispering are all said to have been heard coming from empty rooms within the building, and phantom footsteps walk on the upper floors.

Blur

Location: Ellesmere Port (Cheshire) - Boat Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A strange creamy-coloured figure was caught on film in this building.

Touch

Location: Fife (Fife) - Scottish Witch Trial Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2024
Further Comments: Curator Leonard Low featured in the local press, sharing his experiences of feeling a phantom hand on his shoulder (which he initially thought belonged to his wife) and other presences in the museum.

Edith

Location: Fort William (Highland) - West Highland Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1997
Further Comments: Edith MacGregor, once a curator, has been heard typing away in one of the rooms upstairs though she died back in the sixties. No typewriters can be found in the building; all have been replaced by PCs.

Screaming Children

Location: Glasgow (Lanarkshire) - Museum of Transport
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twenty-first century
Further Comments: A museum security guard reported encountering several spooky occurrences during his time working here, including the screams of children, balls of blue light and sightings of a headless woman.

Glowing Girl

Location: Glasgow (Lanarkshire) - Riverside Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: August 2016
Further Comments: A photograph taken at this museum revealed a pale, bright little girl waving at the camera. Some claimed the image showed a ghostly Victorian child, while others believed the photograph to be an over-exposed person or a photoshopped fake.

Blurred Figure

Location: Gloucester (Gloucestershire) - National Waterways Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 29 July 2008
Further Comments: A photograph taken by a thirteen year old girl in this building apparently shows a ghostly figure partly obscured by a wooden barrel. Other visitors have reported seeing a man in black or have heard footsteps or voices in parts of the museum that should have been empty.

Moving Displays

Location: Huddersfield (West Yorkshire) - Tolson Museum
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa 2008
Further Comments: A former worker on the site reported that items would move around at night. One evening police responded to the alarm being activated - there was no sign of a break in, and a police dog taken into the museum started to whimper and lay on the ground.

Quite a Few

Location: King's Lynn (Norfolk) - True's Yard Fisherfolk Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: This building is said to be haunted by a few dozen ghosts, although no sightings appear to predate the year 2000. The building's ghosts featured in several news publications in September 2021 after a ghost hunter's motion-activated music box was left on the site, causing museum staff some concern.

Children

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Armley Mills (now a museum)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Formally the largest wool mill in the world, children as young as six years old are reported as dying in accidents on the site. Children's voices are reported on the site and a dark figure spotted on a staircase.

Man in a White Coat

Location: Leeds (West Yorkshire) - Thackray Medical Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Post-1997
Further Comments: A ghostly man in a white coat has been spotted in the recreation of a Victorian Street within this building, while a grey lady dressed in nineteenth century clothing waves at staff along the second floor.

Engineer

Location: Leicester (Leicestershire) - Abbey Pumping Station Museum
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: An engineer fell to his death in the beam engine house. His spirit still lingers, playing with lights and making noises in the basement.