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Examining folkloric, paranormal & cryptozoological locations in the UK and beyond

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Road Ghosts, Folklore and Forteana

Coach

Location: Horstead (Norfolk) - Meyton bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 19 May (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A ghostly coach and four passes over this bridge once a year. It is said to be driven by a headless Sir Thomas Boleyn and is one of eleven (or twelve) bridges that he passes over on the night of his daughter Anne's execution.

Lad

Location: Horton (Dorset) - Road leading north-west from village, close to Horton Tower
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A young boy, thought to be from the time of the English Civil War, plays in the lane. His darting in front of incoming traffic is said to unnerve drivers.


The ghost pig of Horton.

Large Pig

Location: Horton (Wiltshire) - Pig Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A large phantom hog is said to haunt this country lane, sometimes accompanied by a rolling barrel.

Highwaymen

Location: How Hill (Suffolk) - London Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A popular place to display the corpses of highway robbers, their shades now walk where the bodies hung.

Young Blonde Boy

Location: Huddersfield (West Yorkshire) - Somerset Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1980s
Further Comments: A female driver swerved and crashed into a parked car to avoid a young boy who stepped out in front of her car. Her description of the child matched that of a boy who had been killed in a road traffic accident a few years previously.

Dark Man

Location: Hugglescote (Leicestershire) - Richmond Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: November 2011
Further Comments: While cycling to work, this witness watched as a dark male figure appeared in front of him. Not able to swerve in time, the witness cycled straight through the entity. The cyclist turned around in time to see the figure walk through the old bridge wall. A friend later told the witness that he had also seen the ghost.

Man in Green

Location: Hughenden Valley (Buckinghamshire) - Hughenden Crematorium, Four Ashes Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1986, 1978
Further Comments: Driver Mark Nursey was being followed by his girlfriend Allyson Bulpett in a separate car when they were both startled by a figure on the side of the road. The entity was said to be wearing what looked like a large green jumper, and although the figure was stooped with no head or hands visible, one witness estimated its height to be 5 foot 11 inches. After Allyson and Mark's story was published, another witness came forward who said they had seen the phantom in 1978, and thought they had run it over, although when they stopped the car, nothing could be seen.

Grey Man

Location: Hullavington (Wiltshire) - Road near Burton Hill House School
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: January 1967, 06:00h
Further Comments: A driver reported narrowly missing a man in grey clothing who stood in the middle of the road - the figure raised its arm and vanished.

Lady on White Stallion

Location: Hungerford (Berkshire) - A338, south of town
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1957 (white horse)
Further Comments: Appearing during the day, this female rider has been observed galloping across the road only to disappear once reaching the other side. The same area is haunted by a spectral coach being pulled at breakneck speed by four horses, and by a hooded man riding a bicycle.

Molly Tape

Location: Hurst (Berkshire) - Road between village and Hinton, Tape Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Easter (reoccurring?)
Further Comments: This shade made local news in 1971 when she appeared drifting down the road wearing very little in the way of clothing. It is thought that the woman hanged herself from a tree in the lane following a disastrous romantic engagement with a farmer.

Woman

Location: Hutton (Essex) - Hanging Hill Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: With no known real history, one could speculate that this female ghost and the name of the Lane have something in common...

Lorry

Location: Hyde (Derbyshire) - A57, between Hyde and Mottram in Longdendale
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1930
Further Comments: This phantom vehicle was blamed for a series of accidents on this stretch of road in which several people died.

Sounds of a Motorbike

Location: Ickleton (Cambridgeshire) - Mill Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid twentieth century
Further Comments: For six months, a family were haunted by the sound of machinery, reminiscent of a motorbike engine, which came from a solid wall in a bedroom.

Peg Legged Man

Location: Iffley (Oxfordshire) - Road running through village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early twentieth century?
Further Comments: This ghost would wake the village up night after night with the scrapping of his false leg as he passed through the village. The locals paid an old man to dismiss the noisy shade, but the would-be exorcist consumed so much Dutch courage before facing the ghost that the police took him away for being drunk and disorderly.

Night Coach

Location: Ilmington (Warwickshire) - Roads of village, particularly Pig Lane
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Varies: 24 December and 01 January the pack hunt, date of coach unknown
Further Comments: This spectral vehicle runs along the roads, before suddenly veering off and vanishing across local fields. This may be related to the ghostly hunt pack seen in the area, led by a man killed by his hounds.

Mary Hunt

Location: Ilminster (Somerset) - Crossroads on the Dowlish road, known locally as Mary Hunt's Grave
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Said to haunt the area where she was buried, Hunt's true history is a mystery.

Man in Blue

Location: Ingleton (North Yorkshire) - Ingleton to Lancaster Road
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 1937
Further Comments: A man in a blue suit was knocked over and killed along this stretch of road. For several weeks after the event, motorists reported hitting the man, who would vanish upon contact.

Lile Hob of Blea Moor

Location: Ingleton (North Yorkshire) - Road between Ingleton and Hawes
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This pixie-like creature would loiter on the roadside and leap upon passing carts to blag a free ride. The Hob vanished when a shepherd stumbled upon three little silver armbands left in a field, one of which he lost and the others he sold.

English Soldiers

Location: Inveraray (Argyll and Bute) - A819 north of town
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Dressed in red coats, a squad of English troops match in formation along this road. This may relate to a sighting of a phantom army seen in the mid-eighteenth century by two local men - the field where this sighting occurred is now urbanised.

John Thurlow Reade

Location: Ipsden (Oxfordshire) - Icknield Way, white memorial stone
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 1827?
Further Comments: John's ghost was seen by his mother on the spot now marked by the memorial stone - he had just died in India at roughly the same time of the sighting. The Icknield Way has several more ghosts reported along it, including phantom coaches, shucks, Romans, and Boadicea's legion.

Smoky Man

Location: Ipswich (Suffolk) - A12 heading towards Orwell Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: November 2013
Further Comments: A driver watched a pillar of smoke rise and form the shape of a young man. The driver believed that the figure was someone who had died nearby.

Man in Grey

Location: Ipswich (Suffolk) - Belvedere Road / Cemetery Lane junction
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 18 December 2012, 08:50h
Further Comments: A driver braked as a man in dark grey clothing and a trilby-like hat stepped out in front of their car. The driver then realised the man had vanished, with no means of passing without the driver seeing. The figure may have also been spotted by a dog walker, who reported a man in old fashioned clothing who tipped his hat before disappearing.

Figure in Wide Brimmed Hat

Location: Isle of Eigg (Highland) - Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late 1990s
Further Comments: Two people walking up the hill spotted a figure behind them. The figure was taking long strides, and wearing dark clothing with a wide brimmed hat, not unlike puritan style, but bowl shaped. As the two people reached the top of the hill, they looked back and the figure had gone - it was impossible to leave the road due to a gully either side.

Headlights

Location: Isle of Skye (Highland) - Road, but exact area not known
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1950s
Further Comments: Passing through the area in a car, the driver and other occupants spotted the headlights of another vehicle approaching them. They pulled into a layby to let the oncoming vehicle pass, but nothing came. They were in a remote area with no turning which the other vehicle could have taken.


Sketch by Franz Marc.

White Horse

Location: Ivinghoe (Buckinghamshire) - Ivinghoe Aston to Slapton Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Winter 1980/81
Further Comments: While travelling along this road during heavy rain at night, a taxi driver encountered someone riding a white horse. The driver had to stop abruptly to avoid the rider, and when the driver looked up, man and horse had vanished. When the witness later mentioned the encounter to other people, they said it was not the first time the entity had been seen.

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