Essex Ghosts

Essex Ghosts gathers reported apparitions, uncanny encounters and local supernatural traditions from the county’s towns, villages and rural landscapes. Its focus is firmly geographical, linking ghost stories to the places where they were told and remembered.

Among the material associated with the book are a chapter on the black dog tradition and accounts connected with Stock and the marshes around Salcott. These include stories of a spectral figure known as Spider and a large black dog reportedly encountered near Salcott crossroads. James Wentworth-Day approaches Essex folklore as a collector of local testimony, preserving the older stories, sightings and rural beliefs attached to the county’s lanes, settlements and marshland.