Britain on the Cheap

Just in time for Halloween, the National Trust and its American affiliate, Royal Oak Foundation, have gone ghost hunting in their own properties!

• Lift a glass with your spectral friends at Belfast’s Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria Street in the city center. The pub was a stop for travelers on the Great Northern Railway years ago, and one visitor recalled sitting with three ghostly men and a woman in one of the famed booths—a “snug”– while waiting for her friends to arrive for cocktails.

• Ham House in Surrey was just too nice a home for one King Charles spaniel, who refuses to leave. The dog’s portrait hangs in the gallery, and the four-legged ghost often wanders the halls. A recent investigation by the Ghost Club, a paranormal research organization based in London, concluded that there may be as many as fifteen ghosts living at the property.

• The Old Post Office in Tintagel, Cornwall, a 600-year-old traditional longhouse, is famous for its flickering lights. One clever researcher used the antique Spagnolli receiver, a precursor to Morse code, to decode the message: “Noah,” it said, over and over – the surname of a previous resident.

• Blickling Hall in Norfolk has every right to be haunted. This was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, the husband who had the lady beheaded. In one incident, two delivery men returned a painting to the home and when asked about the authorization, said, “Oh, the lady signed for it… the lady in the Dining Room.”

The house administrator was supposed to be the only person living in Blickling Hall at the time, so it’s assumed Anne wanted the painting restored.

She may wander at her leisure, of course, but it’s pretty certain that Anne appears on the anniversary of her death each year, May 19. The Grey Lady, her nickname because of her long gray dress with lace collar, has been spotted looking across the lake and riding up the drive in a coach drawn by a headless horseman.