Most haunted places in Cov & Warks

WE’RE deep into October which means one thing - it’s time to start getting spooky.

Halloween is just around the corner and people are beginning to plan their outfits and activities for the annual tradition.

You might be trick or treating, heading to a party or maybe just staying at home.

However if you think an extra dose of creepy will suit you this Halloween, check out our list of the most haunted places in Coventry and Warwickshire.

The Slug and Lettuce, Coventry: The Slug and Lettuce - formerly The Establishment - is one of Coventry’s oldest buildings and is the holder of a haunted location award given by Spook Hunters due to its paranormal going-s-on.

Located in the Old County Hall, the venue is known for its ghostly spirits as much as the liquid variety and the building used to form part of a jail, gallows and cemetery complex.

Among those hanged near the premises was Mary Bell- - the last woman to be hanged in Coventry.

The paranormal investigators toured the medieval courthouseand came away convinced the bar was haunted- by court officials and prisoners.

Ettington Park Hotel, Stratford: This building is so scary it featured in the classic1963 shocker The Haunting.

Ettington also holds the prestigious title of the Most Haunted Hotel in Britain.

Sightings at the hotel range from an old woman in Victorian clothes, a vanishing man and his dog, army officers and monks.

But Ettington Park is most famous for the ghost of a woman in a white gown, known as Lady Emma.

The spooky hotel has been used as a nursing home, a camp for prisoners of war and spent a short amount of time as a club.

Ettington Park is now a luxury hotel with visitors coming from far and wide to sleep within its haunted walls.

Brownsover Hall Hotel, Rugby: This Victorian Gothic mansion is said to be haunted by a former resident known

as One-handed Boughton.

He apparently lost his arm during the Elizabethan times.

In the 18th Century, clergymen were brought in to try and remove the spirit, which was deemed successful at the time.

It is said they used a bottle to persuade the spirit to climb into and this was then thrown into the lake on the grounds.

However, the spirit predictably returned when fisherman recovered the container in the 1880s and the hauntings have supposedly continued.

Staff and guests have reported groans, footsteps and voices coming from an empty tower.

Coombe Abbey Hotel: Originally a 12th Century monastery, guests at Coombe Abbey Hotel are said to be visited by the ghost of Abbott Geoffrey, a hooded monk who was brutally murdered in 1345.

The building was built in 1150 by Cistercian monks. In 1964, Coventry City Council purchased Coombe Abbeyand in 1992 No Ordinary Hotels purchased the house and turned it in to the hotel you see today.

Despite the changes, the ghost of Abott Geoffrey stuck around to haunt the halls, along with the spirit of a young girl known as Matilda, a gypsy girl often heard walking across the cobbles.

Days Hotel, Coventry: Visitors and staff at Days

Hotel building - formerly Aston Court Hotel - in Holyhead Road have reported numerous sightings and strange happenings in the hotel over the years.

After investigating the location, theGhost Society of England claimed the hotel is hauntedby five spirits.

Using night vision video cameras and magnetic detectors, investigators and mediums scoped out the spectres.

They believed the ghosts include two men, two women and a young girl with a

certain hatred for males.

Hotel staff now allegedly keep men out of a certain room in the hotel in fear the young ghost might attack them.

St David’s Guildhall: The Guildhall once held Mary, Queen of Scots prisoner within its walls and has always had a reputation for being haunted.

Regular sightings include a grey lady, a little girl and a monk.

St Mary’s has a room known as the drapers room which is rumoured to be very emotional, with many people being overcome with a feeling of sadness and some even bursting into tears for no reason.

The building was built on part of the site of the former Coventry castle and is considered to be the finest medieval guildhall in the country.

Warwick Castle: What’s a castle without a few spectres and things things that go bump in the night?

Warwick Castle was built in 1068 by William the Conquerer, the castle is rumoured to be haunted and its resident spectre is the ghost of Sir Fulke Greville, who was murdered by his manservant and left to die a slow, painful death. The tower where Sir Greville is frequently spotted is aptly named the ghost tower and down in the depths of the dungeons is believed to lurk the spirit of a black dog with dark red eyes.

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford: It may not be the ghost of Hamlet,but the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is rumoured to have its own visitors from beyond the grave.

Regular accounts are told of the perfumed lady’smelt in the upper circle, and another known as the grey lady haunting the area around the Swan Theatre.

Investigations have been done into the Swan Theatre bridge lights, which turn themselves on every night, but no timer was found connected to the lights and they have not been tampered with. Spooky.

...down in the depths of the dungeons is believed to lurk the spirit of a black dog with dark red eyes.