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Educational Ghosts, Folklore and Forteana
Golden Men
Location: Anlaby (Yorkshire) - Anlaby school, playing ground
Type: UFO
Date / Time: 18 January 1978
Further Comments: A youngster playing in the grounds of the school watched a round craft land and three figures dressed in golden clothing climb out. The child ran off to find friends to tell, and when he returned with someone the craft was already back in the sky - it quickly flew off.
Victorian Boy
Location: Bakewell (Derbyshire) - St Anselm's School
Date / Time: Unknown - mid-twentieth century?
Further Comments: During a social event at the school, some of the guests were photographed by a master on steps in the garden. When the photograph was developed, a boy in Victorian clothing could be seen standing with the guests, though no one could recall him being there at the time.
Location: Ballyvourney (County Cork) - Ballyvourney De Salle College
Further Comments: After numerous stakeouts, CPI (Cork Paranormal Investigators) are convinced that this disused college is home to several entities, including a priest, a young boy and four teachers. The sound of laughing children and the ringing of a bell are just a few of the incidents reported.
Colour Shifting Woman
Location: Barlborough (Derbyshire) - Barlborough Hall (currently Mount St Mary's College)
Date / Time: Nights of the Full Moon (reoccurring)
Further Comments: Wayne Anthony, in Haunted Derbyshire and the Peak District, writes that a phantom woman, reported as being grey blue or white, haunts this Elizabethan hall. A room in the upper part of the building is home to a ghostly blood stain belonging to a murdered priest - the story says it took many decades to be cleaned up, and even now it periodically returns. The hall was also once home to Robin Hood's long bow, now kept at Renishaw Hall, and local tradition has it that Robin and Marian were married in a nearby church.
Location: Barrow (Suffolk) - Stone in pavement near village school
Date / Time: New Year's Eve (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: A stone set into the pavement here is reported to mark the spot where a highwayman was hanged. Once a year the stone turns itself over on the stroke of midnight.
John Daniel
Location: Beaminster (Dorset) - Beaminster School, now part of St Mary's Church
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Further Comments: Thought to have died from a fit, John Daniel was buried after being found dead in a field near his home. Soon after, his ghost was seen in the school, a coffin by his side as he sat at his former desk. A new examination of the body revealed John had been strangled, though his killer was never found.
Location: Beckington (Somerset) - Beckington Castle (also formally Ravenscroft School, 1945 - 1970)
Further Comments: The castle is noted as possibly being the first building in the UK which used its haunting as a selling point when being sold off in the late 1910s. A location report by the Wessex Paranormal Research Organisation states that a former pupil at the site had seen a dark shadow pass through a wall.
Samuel Whitbread
Location: Bedford (Bedfordshire) - Bedford School
Further Comments: The ghost of the 1903 headmaster Samuel Whitbread is reported to wander the corridors of the higher floors of the main building (which he commissioned) at night. On numerous occasions he has asked people who enter the building at night for directions out; one boy when leading him to the exit found he suddenly disappeared.
Hand Holder
Location: Belfast (County Antrim) - Friar's Bush area - tunnel running between two areas of Queen's University
Further Comments: One person reported a phantom hand which clasped their own as they walked through the tunnel.
Location: Bellingham (Northumberland) - Brownrigg school (no longer operating)
Further Comments: Three girls unable to sleep in their dorm one night all heard the thunderous sound of horses and the clanking of metal pass through the room. One witness said they were so terrified they did not dare open their eyes.
Workshop Worker
Location: Bolton (Greater Manchester) - Outside the college and along Deane Road
Further Comments: This ghostly figure has been seen standing outside the college, wearing clothes that identify him as an old blue collar worker.
Smartly Dressed Male
Location: Bolton (Cumbria) - Eden Grove (former school, closed 2013)
Further Comments: The man who reputedly haunted this site had a whiff of tobacco and sweet flowers about him, with a smart wardrobe consisting of sports coat and flannel trousers.
White Woman with Mistletoe
Location: Bramshill (Hampshire) - Bramshill House (police college)
Further Comments: Not just home to the ghostly bride (who suffered the fate of hiding in a chest from her husband while playing hide and seek, only to become stuck and suffocate) who wakes people up who spend the night there, but also to a grey lady who haunts the library and a green man who hovers by the lake - it is reported that he has no legs. Finally, a man in a flannel suit was observed walking through a wall by a security guard in the 1970s.
Fanny Clarke
Location: Brantham (Suffolk) - Brantham Place, School Lane
Date / Time: Mid-to-late-twentieth century
Further Comments: The original house which was haunted by this ghost no longer stands - Fanny was shot and killed outside the building by a jealous lover and had remained earthbound.
Location: Bristol (Somerset) - University of Bristol and Tyndall, Avenue area
Further Comments: Students have reported seeing a headless horseman patrolling this area late at night.
Executed Soldier
Location: Bristol (Somerset) - College Green
Further Comments: Condemned to death and promptly executed for deserting an England/Scotland conflict, the trooper now drifts around the green in the early morning hours.
Saucer Occupants
Location: Broad Haven (Dyfed) - Broad Haven County Primary School
Further Comments: A large disc was seen landing near the school by fourteen of its pupils, some of whom also said men with pointed ears and dressed in silver clothing had climbed out. For several months after the event, sightings continued in the area.
Bloated Face
Location: Broadstairs (Kent) - Boarding School, run by Mr & Mrs Hester
Date / Time: Early twentieth century
Further Comments: Author Dennis Wheatley encountered a man with a white, bloated face while boarding at this school. He thought the figure was a burglar, and a hunt ensured on the property after his sighting. However, the figure had disappeared, leaving no trace. A few years later, during the First World War, Wheatley was told the figure he encountered was an elemental, accidently summoned by the Hesters.
Location: Brooksby (Leicestershire) - Brooksby Agriculture College
Further Comments: The sounds of a coach being pulled by horse can be heard in the hall here - the building was moved and rebuilt in the nineteenth century, with the hall being placed where a road once lay. A phantom woman also reportedly roams the building.
Lady in Brown
Location: Bryanston (Dorset) - Hanford House, currently a school?
Date / Time: Pre-twentieth century
Further Comments: A very polite shade, this woman in brown would curtsey to visitors to the building (their reaction to this is not documented!) and watch over children as they went to bed. A legend says that white peacocks were once raised here by the Seymer family which owned the house, and it was believed that if the peacocks left, then the Seymers would also soon depart. A disbelieving viscount disposed of the birds and died soon after, resulting in the house being sold.
Aunt Charlotte
Location: Bryanston (Dorset) - Portman (aka Bryanston) House, currently the school
Further Comments: The shade of Aunt Charlotte was so prevalent the first building here was pulled down and rebuilt solely to rid the living of her ghost. Charlotte may never have been seen again, but a phantom horse and carriage now haunt the drive.
Educational Shade
Location: Buckhaven (Fife) - College
Further Comments: This college is reportedly haunted by a spirit nicknamed Green Jean.
Strange Hound
Location: Bunbury (Cheshire) - School Lane
Further Comments: A phantom dog has been spotted in an area near the school.
Location: Bunbury (Cheshire) - College Lane
Further Comments: A ghostly man on horseback is said to cross the lane before vanishing.
Visiting Devil
Location: Burnley (Lancashire) - Old Grammar School
Further Comments: A large, scorched patch on some flagstones in the building is explained away by a story which involves a group of students silly enough to try to summon the Devil - as he climbed out of the ground, the pupils panicked and hit Old Nick with books, stones and anything they could grab, until he disappeared back to Hell.
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