It’s Halloween, and what better time to recall some of the Island’s most time-honoured ghost stories.
Here, we’ve compiled a list of five haunted places on the Isle of Wight, and touched upon exactly what it is that makes them so spooky.
1: Arreton Manor
Arreton Manor. Pictures courtesy of Arreton Manor Facebook page.
The ninth-century building is said to house the spirit of Annabelle Leigh, who was thrown from its highest window.
Legend has it, Ms Leigh was killed by her own brother, after witnessing him suffocate their father.
Now, she haunts the manor, and is most active in the room from which she was thrown.
2: Knighton Gorges Manor
Though the manor is no longer standing, tales of its nebulous image are still rife.
People passing the grounds late at night have reported seeing the spectre of the building itself, returned to a state contemporary eyes have seen only in paintings.
In the 1700s, a member of parliament – Tristram Dillington – is believed to have taken his own life in the building, after suffering a heavy gambling loss.
The entrance to the Knighton Gorge Manor, circa 1900. The pillars are all that remains of the house. Picture by Alan Stroud and Colin Fairweather.
His valet hoisted his body onto a horse and drove it into a lake, in order to preserve the manor’s image, and each year, on the anniversary of his death, the long departed rides through the grounds on a saturated mount.
3: Carisbrooke Castle
Carisbrooke Castle. Pictures by Alan Stroud and Colin Fairweather.
Dating back to the Norman invasion, the castle is steeped in history, and is not without its fair share of ghostly apparitions.
Among those to haunt its grounds is a nameless ‘grey lady’, seen walking in tandem with her husband and a pack of hounds.
The pair are believed to be the former owners of the manor, and are joined by the spirit of Elisabeth Ruffin.
A women who died after falling into a well, with no one around to answer her cries, visitors have reported seeing Ms Ruffin’s floating face wailing in the night.
4: Ventnor Botanic Garden
Ventnor Hospital, 1963. Pictures by Alan Stroud and Colin Fairweather.
The garden, while undeniably beautiful and brimming with exotic flora, nonetheless possesses an indelible, and rather sinister quality.
Previously the site of The Royal National Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, the spirits of its former patients – those who were not so fortunate in their recovery – are believed to still haunt the location.
Beyond the disembodied wails, visitors have reported seeing the phantoms of frail, gaunt men wandering the garden, suffering the effects of tuberculosis for all eternity.
5: Appuldurcombe House
Built in the 1700s, the manor is arguably the most famous of our list, so far as spooky tales are concerned.
Among the most prevalent is that of an old-fashion carriage, which travellers have reported seeing on the road leading up to the manor.
Pulled along by galloping horses, neither tracks nor hoof prints are left in its wake.
Appuldurcombe House, 1954. Picture by Alan Stroud and Colin Fairweather.
The ghosts of the manor are many and varied, and perhaps the most chilling of them all are those who lurk in its cellar.
The shadows of former occupants still cling to the walls, dancing unabated, unaware of the time elapsed since the last ball.
A truth self-evident, or spurious hokum, where do you stand on ghosts?
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