The Paranormal Database

Woman

Location: Rochester (Kent) - Backroom Bookshop (no longer open), High Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: The owner of this shop spotted a woman dressed in 1960s-era clothing walking between the shelves before she vanished.

Flying Veg

Location: Rochester (Kent) - Food Glorious Food (shop)
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa 2021
Further Comments: Local media reported the site to be haunted after owners witnessed vegetables flying across the shop, and experiencing power cuts and a radio which would start playing classical music. One piece of local folklore claimed the entity may relate to a man who had his figures cut off after sexually assaulting a woman.

Sid

Location: Royal Tunbridge Wells (Kent) - Barry M Cosmetics, Calverley Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1990 / 1991
Further Comments: All the staff reported paranormal activity while working in the shop during this time. Footsteps would be heard on empty floors, a sweet smelling tobacco could be detected, whispering could be heard, and finger marks would suddenly appear in dust.

Shattering Mirrors

Location: Royston (Hertfordshire) - Henrick's Hairdressing salon
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2004
Further Comments: Mirrors have been known to fly from the walls and the radio changes stations at will, in this haunted salon. A psychic blamed the former owner of the building who slit his own throat.

Man in Black Coat

Location: Ruddington (Nottinghamshire) - Horspools Bakery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This shop is haunted by a man wearing a black coat that looks completely normal, until he disappears.

Lady in Grey

Location: Rye (Sussex) - Ye Olde Tuck Shop, Market Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom lady in grey reputedly haunted this shop.

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.

Chip Shop

Location: Sheffield (South Yorkshire) - Firth Park
Type: Environmental Manifestation
Date / Time: 1990
Further Comments: Walking home one evening, a mother and daughter spotted a chip shop which they had thought was new, as they had not seen it before. The shop was open, lights were on, and people were inside. A couple of nights later, they decided to visit the takeaway, but it was not there - a DIY shop stood on the spot, twice the size of the chip shop they had seen.

Floating Feet

Location: Sheffield (South Yorkshire) - Schofield's department store (now Argos Extra), Angel Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The boiler room here was haunted by a pair of feet which hovered a half a metre or so from the floor.

Charlotte

Location: Sidmouth (Devon) - Kennaway House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: March 2012
Further Comments: A young female ghost in a long dress was named Charlotte and would sit in the corner of a room in this building. The entity was said to be non-threatening.

Gladys

Location: Sidmouth (Devon) - New Look shop
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: June 2014
Further Comments: An older Victorian lady was blamed for crashes and bangs, disembodied footsteps and whisperings which were heard around this shop. The ghost, manifesting as a woman in black, was named as Gladys. After flowers were offered to her, the ghost quietened down.

Shannon Passengers

Location: Skegness (Lincolnshire) - The Hildred's (former hotel and pub, demolished in 1987, now shopping centre)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: H Samuels in 2013, others unknown
Further Comments: A sudden storm capsized the pleasure boat Shannon; only three passengers survived and twenty-eight drowned. Twelve bodies were initially recovered and laid out at Hildred's hotel for the coroner to conduct an inquest. The event is blamed for a strange atmosphere found in some parts of the building. Staff at H Samuels Jewellers reported poltergeist activity in 2013. Another ghost, that of Eva May Saxby who died in 1936 after falling through a fanlight, was also said to haunt the site.

Cloud

Location: South Shields (Tyne and Wear) - Jazz hairdressers, Frederick Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December 2008
Further Comments: Footsteps, whistling, knocking, and a solid, hovering cloud have all been reported by staff at the salon. Customers have reported seeing people dressed in old fashioned clothing in the upper part of the building. A barman is said to have died falling down the basement stairs when the building was a club during the 1950s.

Falling sounds

Location: Southwold (Suffolk) - Former vicarage (currently a bus office, wool shop & paint shop)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Many sounds seem to have once haunted this building - sighs, creaking of a chair, the rattling of chains, and the sound of someone falling down the stairs.

Man in Bath Chair

Location: Southwold (Suffolk) - Private House along Child's Opening
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: First half of twentieth century, always around 01:00h, last seen 1948
Further Comments: This spooky figure, sometimes wheeling himself around in a bath chair, other times walking, was watched by occupants of a house several times. The entity would cross their yard and vanish into a bricked up doorway to a former hat shop.

An old woodcut of two armies engaging in hand-to-hand combat.

Sounds of Battle

Location: St Albans (Hertfordshire) - Row of shops along Chequer Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The location of the Battle of St Albans, fought during the War of the Roses, is said to still generate the sounds of battle.

Former Resident

Location: St Ives (Cornwall) - Woolworths (no longer open)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This store was said to be haunted by a former resident of the building.

Herbert

Location: Stapleford (Nottinghamshire) - Deacon House (former carpet shop)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2019
Further Comments: The upper part of the shop was said to be haunted by Herbert; his presence accompanied by the smell of lavender. A photograph taken in 2019 was said to show Herbert's face on a wall, manifesting in a damp patch, although it's more than likely a case of pareidolia.

Cloaked Figure

Location: Steeple Ashton (Wiltshire) - Former village courthouse, converted into a village store
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1944
Further Comments: The old village courthouse was being used as a grocery store in 1944, and the owners reported a ghostly figure wearing a black cloak who would enter the bedroom and search a cupboard. A local tradition said that the ghost of Judge Jeffreys haunted the building, and in life he had stored his paperwork in the haunted cupboard.

Music

Location: Stockton-on-Tees (Durham) - Castlegate Shopping Centre, Stephenson House (demolished 2022)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s, 2019
Further Comments: Strange music and sounds are said to occasionally be heard at night in this shopping centre. In 2019 a ghost hunting team claimed to have recorded a phantom figure with a thermal imaging camera.

Running on the Stairs

Location: Stoke on Trent (Staffordshire) - Former Aquatics Shop (no longer open)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2005
Further Comments: People could be heard running on the staircase here, although no one could be seen. While cleaning the glass on a fish tank, one worker in the shop spotted the reflection of someone behind them - the only other person on the site was upstairs.

Shelf Disruption

Location: Stourbridge (West Midlands) - The One Stop Shop, Norton
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2003
Further Comments: This shop was plagued by poltergeist like behaviour, the management putting the blame on 'bad electrics', while staff and visitors saying that the contents of the shelves were being pushed to the ground by 'something else'. A local psychic claimed the ghost of an old woman was to blame, and that he had moved her on.

Older Woman

Location: Sunderland (Tyne and Wear) - Greggs, Sea Road
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2000s
Further Comments: Staff would hear banging coming from empty parts of the shop, detect the whiff of lavender, and would find electrical items which were switched off turned back on. The activity was blamed on the spirit of a woman who once lived above the shop.

Reader?

Location: SW1 (Greater London) - Harrods department store
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twenty-first century
Further Comments: Justin Timberlake is said to have hired out the store after hours in an attempt to encounter the ghost which reputedly haunts the book department.

Officer

Location: Thanet (Kent) - Former Ambulance Station, now Westwood Cross
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2004
Further Comments: A cold wind felt in the former ambulance station, even in the height of summer, was attributed to a phantom officer. Some believe that even though the building has been replaced by a shopping centre, the ghost remains.