I am a great fan of Halloween. Not the trick or treat, stuff your face with sweets aspect, but the tradition of telling scary stories. It's something I grew up with, after all England is notorious for having more ghosts per square mile than any other country. So to celebrate Halloween here are two spooky stories.
The Wicked Lady Howard
One of England's most famous ghosts is the wicked Lady Howard, who appears in a phantom coach made from human bones - the bones of her four late husbands. The skeleton of a dog runs beside the coach. The story goes that each night the coach comes to Oakhampton Castle in Devonshire and the skeletal dog picks a blade of grass from Oakhampton Park to carry back to Lady Howard's family home. She has to take this journey every night until every blade of grass is picked - that is until the end of the world - as a punishment for murdering her four husbands.
Borley Rectory
Borley Rectory is often called "The most haunted house in England." The site of the rectory originally held a monastery, which was inhabited by Benedictine monks. Subsequent to this, the monastery came under the ownership of the Waldergrave family, who occupied it for three centuries. In the late 1800's a descendant of the Waldegraves, the reverend Bull, built a new rectory on the site of the old monastery. It was not until after the new rectory was built that strange things started to happen.
One of the spectres that was said to roam the grounds was a nun who in the 13th century fell in love with and tried to elope with a monk.According to legend, the nun and monk were caught in their get-away horse and carriage. As punishment, the monk was hung and the nun was walled up alive in the rectory. Some people reported seeing the ghostly form of the horse and carriage in addition to the nun. The reverend Harry Bull, who died at Borley, also was reputed to have haunted the rectory. He would appear dressed in the grey jacket in which he passed away.
In the late 1920s, the house was owned by a reverend (Lionel A. Foyster) and his wife who reported poltergeist-like phenomena. Supposedly the prankish spirit locked the wife in the bedroom, and other times threw her out of the bed. Pebbles were thrown at the windows, and mysterious writing
appeared on walls.