Haunted place · England, United Kingdom

Pluckley

Updated November 202611 sources How to visit

As seen on Most Haunted

A Kent village listed by Guinness in 1989 as Britain's most haunted, with a Red Lady in its churchyard, a phantom highwayman and the so-called Screaming Woods.

The story

Pluckley lies in the borough of Ashford in Kent, southeast England, and forms its own civil parish, which also takes in the neighboring hamlet of Pluckley Thorne. It has deep roots. The Domesday Book of 1086 already records it, and at that time it was a more important settlement than Ashford, which has since grown into a sizable town while Pluckley stayed small.

For centuries the parish was dominated by one family, the Derings, whose seat was Surrenden Manor. The house is remembered by literary historians as the place where the "Dering Manuscript", an early copy of Shakespeare's Henry IV, was found. The family's mark is clearest in the parish church of St Nicholas, most of which dates from the 1200s and 1300s. The Dering Chapel, added in 1475, fills the eastern end of the south aisle behind a pair of screens. In the nave are brasses commemorating members of the family, all produced in the 1630s on the orders of Sir Edward Dering.

Pluckley's countryside has also had a gentler kind of fame: in the early 1990s it served as a filming location for ITV's The Darling Buds of May, standing in for the fictional Sidcup. But it is a single line in a reference book that defines the village for most outsiders. In 1989 the Guinness Book of Records described Pluckley as "the most haunted village in Britain" and credited it with 12 separate ghosts. Guinness no longer uses that category, yet the title has followed the village ever since.

The legend

Pluckley's reputation rests on quantity rather than on one great story, and the sources we could check name only part of the dozen ghosts that Guinness counted.

Top of the list is the Red Lady. Tradition makes her a member of the Dering family, and she is supposed to haunt the graves around St Nicholas. A Fortean Times article titled "The village with a dozen ghosts" has her haunting the place since the 12th century. That date should be taken as part of the legend: the Dering monuments in the church belong to the 15th to 17th centuries, and nothing documented links a Dering lady to the 1100s.

The other reputed spirits are sketched in only a line or two each. There is a ghostly monk, with no details about where he appears or who he was. There is a gypsy woman called Susan Richardson, whose death is described only as mysterious; Tristan Bancks, a presenter on the CITV children's series It's a Mystery, went looking for a ghostly gypsy who supposedly sells watercress by Pinnock Bridge, which may be the same figure. And there is a phantom highwayman, to whom Most Haunted gave the name Robert Du Bois, claiming he was killed in the Screaming Woods. We found no historical record of a Robert Du Bois, so the name is known only through the television program.

Two places carry much of the lore. Fright Corner is a road junction where, ghost hunters say, three of the hauntings occur within a few feet of each other. Dering Wood, nicknamed the Screaming Woods, is reputed to be a major focus of reported activity.

Pluckley has become a fixture of paranormal broadcasting. LWT's Strange but True? aired "Pluckley – The most haunted village in England" on 13 September 1996. Most Haunted's "Midsummer Murders" episode (season 10, episode 4) on 10 July 2007 investigated the Du Bois story. Syfy's Ghost Hunters International filmed at Elvey Farm, the Black Horse Inn and in the woods for "Haunted Village", broadcast on 30 January 2008. Channel 4's The Sunday Night Project came on 20 July 2008, and Top Gear's Richard Hammond and James May once stayed overnight in the woods. BBC Radio 4's Open Country examined how the hauntings affect village life on 4 November 2010; the series Ghostly Legends filmed here; and the podcast The ParaPod dedicated series 1, episode 9 to Pluckley, with a spoken tour of the reputed sites.

Skepticism is part of the record too. A Daily Telegraph reporter sent to the village in 2008 questioned whether the claims held up, and Guinness's decision to drop the category is a reminder that "most haunted" was always a reputation, not a measurement. No dated first report has been found for any individual ghost.

What remains today

Pluckley is a living Kent village, not a ruin or a museum. The Church of St Nicholas, with its medieval fabric, the 1475 Dering Chapel and the 1630s brasses, is the most tangible link with the family at the center of the legends. Fright Corner, Pinnock Bridge and the Screaming Woods are ordinary parts of the local landscape, and the Black Horse Inn and Elvey Farm have appeared on television in connection with the stories.

Visiting

The village roads and the churchyard are public, but Pluckley is first and foremost a place where people live. Visit by day where possible, keep noise down, and treat the churchyard as a place of worship and burial: no disturbing graves, no candles or nighttime gatherings. Fright Corner is a road junction, so don't stand in the road for photos. Some of the woodland and farmland linked with the legends may be private; stay on public roads and footpaths and ask permission before entering any land. We found no officially organized ghost tour, so the best approach is a daytime walk combining the church, the village and the Kent countryside.

The ghosts

Monk or priest

The ghostly monk

A phantom monk is listed among the village's reputed ghosts, with no further details about where or why he appears.

Apparitions

Ghostly lady

The gypsy watercress seller

Said to be Named as Susan Richardson, who died in mysterious circumstances

The ghost of a gypsy woman, named as Susan Richardson, is among the village's reputed hauntings. On It's a Mystery, presenter Tristan Bancks went looking for the ghost of a gypsy woman said to sell watercress near Pinnock Bridge, presumably the same figure.

Apparitions

Reported by: It's a Mystery (CITV), presenter Tristan Bancks

Ghostly lady

The gypsy woman (Susan Richardson)

Said to be Named as Susan Richardson, who died in mysterious circumstances

A gypsy woman named Susan Richardson is among the reputed ghosts. On It's a Mystery, Tristan Bancks searched for a ghostly watercress seller by Pinnock Bridge, possibly the same figure.

Apparitions

Reported by: It's a Mystery (CITV), Tristan Bancks

Spirit

The phantom highwayman

Said to be Named by Most Haunted as Robert Du Bois, murdered in the Screaming Woods; no historical record found

A highwayman is one of the hauntings said to cluster around Fright Corner. Most Haunted's 2007 episode named him Robert Du Bois and investigated his supposed murder in the Screaming Woods, but no record of such a person was found.

Apparitions

Reported by: Most Haunted S10E04 (2007)

Ghostly lady

The Red Lady

Said to be Said to be a Lady Dering, of the family that dominated the parish

Pluckley's best-known ghost, said to haunt the graveyard around St Nicholas. A Fortean Times article claims she has walked there since the 12th century, a date that does not fit the documented Dering monuments of the 15th–17th centuries.

Apparitions

Reported by: Fortean Times, "The village with a dozen ghosts"

Spirit

The Screaming Woods

Dering Wood, known as the Screaming Woods, is described as a hotspot of paranormal activity and was featured by Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters International.

Reported by: Most Haunted; Ghost Hunters International