10 of the most haunted places in England

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Many royal homes have centuries of dark history, including unsolved murders, executions and long-term imprisonments. It is therefore unsurprising that royals across the world are said to share their palaces and castles with ghostly residents. While Sandringham House has a room staff are too afraid to enter, Windsor Castle houses the ghost of a locked-away King. Here, Express.co.uk delves into the tales of creepy castles and palace poltergeists. 

Buckingham Palace

The London-based Palace is known to be the primary residence of the British Royal Family, where monarchs of the past have traditionally resided. While King Charles III is yet to move in, his mother and predecessor Queen Elizabeth II spent the largest proportion of her 70-year reign there. 

It has been said that several royals don’t like the 775-room Palace, with many regarding it as an office rather than a home, reportedly due to its sheer size and cold atmosphere. But perhaps the general aversion also stems from the Palace’s eerie history. 

Buckingham Palace has been in the Royal Family since 1703, but its ghostly residents date back long before that time. The site is where a monastery once stood and some have reported seeing the ghost of a monk, cloaked in a brown cowl, who died in a punishment cell. 

Another ghost who allegedly roams the halls of the Palace is that of Major John Gwynne, King Edward VII’s private secretary. After the Major divorced his wife and amid public criticism, he is said to have shot himself inside one of the offices. Palace staff have reported hearing the sound of a single gunshot coming from inside the room. 

Windsor Castle

According to reports, King George III is one of several ghosts haunting the largest inhabited castle in the world.

George III was confined to Windsor Castle in the early 1800s having descended into madness: he spent 10 years in castle confinement until his death at the Berkshire residence in 1820. 

Windsor Castle is the final resting of 11 British monarchs, including Henry VIII, George III, Edward VII, George V, George VI and Elizabeth II. 

While Henry VIII is said to haunt the deanery cloisters, George III peers from the window in the room where he was often detained, according to a 2014 BBC report, which also claimed Elizabeth I’s ghost has been seen by several members of the Royal Family in the Royal Library.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse

The official Scottish residence of the Royal Family has a particularly eerie history — it was the site of a gruesome murder. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, who inherited the throne at just six weeks old, spent the majority of her life inside the palace walls. Her reign spanned 25 years, from 1542 to 1567, when she was forced to abdicate the throne and subsequently imprisoned and later executed. 

A year before her abdication, her personal secretary, David Rizzio, was murdered in her private apartments. Mary’s husband, Lord Darnley, was said to have disagreed with Mr Rizzio’s power over the Queen, and therefore orchestrated the assassination. 

On March 9, 1566, Lord Darnley and 70 other men carried out the attack. According to The Tudor Society, Mary attempted to intervene but, being heavily pregnant at the time, was restrained while it was carried out. She later reported that Mr Rizzio was stabbed 56 times.

Less than a year later, on February 10, 1567, Lord Darnley was found dead after his living quarters were destroyed by an explosion. While his death remains unsolved, it is widely suspected that Queen Mary and her third and final husband, the Earl of Bothwell played a part in the murder, as they were married just three months after his death. 

Hampton Court Palace

Two of the wives of notorious King Henry VIII are said to haunt Hampton Court Palace, which has reportedly been the site of multiple ghost sightings over the years. 

Jane Seymour, who died inside the Richmond-based Palace after giving birth in 1537, is thought to appear on her son’s birthday. According to Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages Hampton Court, the pale figure of Henry’s beloved wife is reported to appear on the Silverstick Stairs, which once led up to the room in which Jane gave birth and died. 

Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is also said to haunt the Palace. Catherine was arrested at Hampton Court in 1541 having been accused of adultery and treason.

According to Historic Royal Palaces, she initially escaped the guards and ran through a hall, screaming for the King’s compassion, but she was eventually apprehended and ultimately executed at the Tower of London. Visitors have reported hearing her screams in the hall, which is now known as the Haunted Gallery.

Hampton Court is also said to be haunted by the ghost of Sybil Penn, a former servant at the Palace who served as a nurse to both Edward VI and a young Elizabeth I. While nursing Elizabeth I back to health as she suffered from smallpox, Penn is believed to have caught the disease and died. She now reportedly roams the castle as an apparition known as the “Grey Lady.”

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Sandringham House

One of the downstairs bedrooms at Sandringham House is said to be so haunted, employees at the royal residence don’t want to work in it. 

According to a 2019 Daily Mail report, staff at the Norfolk estate were hesitant to hold a service with the late Queen Elizabeth II in the room where George VI lived during the months before his death. 

In his private diaries, which were publicised by the outlet, royal biographer Kenneth Rose wrote: “Prue Penn [the Queen Mother’s lady-in-waiting] tells me that at Sandringham in the summer, the Queen invited her to attend a little service in one of its rooms conducted by the local parson. The only other person present was the Queen Mother.

“Some of the servants had complained that the room was haunted and did not want to work in it. The parson walked from room to room and did indeed feel some sort of restlessness in one of them.”

He continued: “This the Queen Mother identified as a ground-floor room which had been turned into a bedroom for George VI during his last months. So the parson held a service there, not exactly of exorcism, which is the driving out of an evil spirit, but of bringing tranquillity.

“The congregation of three took Holy Communion and special prayers were said, I think for the repose of the King’s soul in the room in which he died.

“The parson said that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana: he had known such things before when someone died a violent death.”

The Tower of London 

While it is no longer an official royal residence, the Tower of London’s dark past means it is rumoured to be one of the most haunted places in the world. 

Some of history’s most infamous deaths took place at the Tower of London, including the 1471 murder of King Henry VI, who was killed while praying in his private chapel. 

It is also presumed that the two sons of Edward IV, often referred to as the Princes in the Tower, were murdered at the site after they went missing there in 1483. Many believe that the brothers were smothered in their sleep by a political rival who wished to be King and deemed the two young Princes as a threat. 

The Tower of London was often used as a site for high-profile executions. Both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s second and fifth wives, were executed there. 

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia 

Despite not being the primary residence of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the Winter Palace is perhaps the most well-known, particularly because of its connections to eerie moments in history. 

In 1903, a costume ball was held to commemorate the anniversary of the reign of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich, the second Romanov tsar. It marked the last major event hosted by the Imperial family at the Palace.

Two years later, the Winter Palace provided the backdrop for the Revolution of 1905 and what came to be known as ‘Bloody Sunday,’ during which more than 100 peaceful protesters were killed by police and several hundred more were injured.

Come 1917, the Imperial family would never again see their home at the Winter Palace. During the October Revolution of 1917, after the abdication of Nicholas II, the family were placed in a remote house in Yekaterinburg and later executed. 

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