Haunted places in England

England's ghosts range from famous historical figures to nameless monks, soldiers and grey ladies. The Tower of London, where Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey died, is the best known. Raynham Hall in Norfolk has the Brown Lady, tied to Dorothy Walpole. At the Treasurer's House in York, the story is of Roman soldiers, reported in the cellar in 1953 and cut off at the knees.

Look past the big names and the list becomes more local. There are ruined abbeys like Furness and Beaulieu, chalk tunnels at Chislehurst and West Wycombe, and pubs with resident stories: the Grenadier in Belgravia has Cedric, a young officer said to have been beaten to death for cheating at cards, and the Flask in Highgate has a heartbroken barmaid.

Some of these legends may owe as much to books as to witnesses. One writer traces Berry Pomeroy's jealous-sister story to an 1806 Gothic novel, and historians link Furness Abbey's eerie image to Gothic writers. Each page tells you what we could find about where the story began.