Haunted Places in the UK & Ireland

Mount Stuart House

📍 Mount Stuart · PA20 9LR

Reports from Mount Stuart House include apparitions, strange noises and the feeling of an unseen presence moving through its historic rooms.

Carnasserie Castle

📍 PA31 8RQ

Ghostly figures, strange sounds and unexplained sensations have been reported at Carnasserie Castle, adding to the site's long supernatural reputation.

Kilchurn Castle

📍 Kilchurn Castle, Loch Awe · PA33 1AF

Visitors report apparitions, unexplained footsteps and sudden cold spots around Kilchurn Castle, where centuries of history have inspired enduring ghost stories.

Dunollie Castle

📍 Dunollie Museum, Castle & Grounds · PA34 5TT

Ghostly figures, strange sounds and unexplained sensations have been reported at Dunollie Castle, adding to the site's long supernatural reputation.

Dunstaffnage Castle

📍 Dunbeg · PA37 1PZ

Visitors report apparitions, unexplained footsteps and sudden cold spots around Dunstaffnage Castle, where centuries of history have inspired enduring ghost stories.

Rothesay Castle

📍 Castlehill Street · PA20 0DA

Visitors report apparitions, unexplained footsteps and sudden cold spots around Rothesay Castle, where centuries of history have inspired enduring ghost stories.

A75 Ghost Road

📍 A75

Local accounts describe vanishing people, animals and a phantom furniture van reported by motorists along the notoriously strange road.

Dirleton Castle

📍 EH39 5ER

Ghostly figures, strange sounds and unexplained sensations have been reported at Dirleton Castle, adding to the site's long supernatural reputation.

Hailes Castle

Visitors report apparitions, unexplained footsteps and sudden cold spots around Hailes Castle, where centuries of history have inspired enduring ghost stories.

Newhailes House

📍 Newhailes, Newhailes Road · EH21 6RY

Reports from Newhailes House include apparitions, strange noises and the feeling of an unseen presence moving through its historic rooms.

Tantallon Castle

📍 EH39 5PN

Visitors report apparitions, unexplained footsteps and sudden cold spots around Tantallon Castle, where centuries of history have inspired enduring ghost stories.

Banshee Labyrinth Hauntings

📍 29–35 Niddry Street · EH1 1LG

The Banshee Labyrinth occupies part of Edinburgh’s underground vault network and is widely described as a haunted pub. Published accounts report apparitions known as the Watcher and a grey lady, while staff and investigators have described unexplained bangs, moving or rattling objects and unusual audio. These are reported experiences rather than proven phenomena. The current venue address, postcode and coordinates are verified, and an exact dedicated Spooky Isles article exists.

Bruntsfield House

📍 Bruntsfield House, James Gillespie’s School grounds · EH9 1DD

Margaret Warrender’s 1890 Walks Near Edinburgh preserves an unusually early family account of the so-called Ghost Room at Bruntsfield House. A concealed chamber was said to have been discovered behind tapestry, with ashes still in the grate and stains on the floor; later, a skeleton was reportedly found buried beneath the windows. Warrender carefully admits that nobody knew what event, if any, explained the room. Modern retellings often transform the unknown victim into a murdered Green Lady, but that identification is a later layer rather than something established by the 1890 account. The haunting is strongest when the mystery and the evolution of the story are both preserved.

Calton Hill

📍 EH7 5AA

Local accounts link Calton Hill with apparitions, mysterious sounds and unsettling encounters that have become part of the area's supernatural folklore.

Camera Obscura and World of Illusions

📍 549 Castlehill, Royal Mile · EH1 2ND

Local accounts describe unexplained childlike sounds, sudden illness and an uneasy atmosphere reported around lower rooms and basement areas.

Canongate Kirkyard

📍 Canongate Kirk, 153 Canongate · EH8 8BN

Witnesses have described shadowy figures, strange sounds and sudden chills around Canongate Kirkyard, where local ghost stories remain part of the site's folklore.

Caroline Park House Green Lady

📍 5 Caroline Park, Caroline Park House · EH5 1QJ

Caroline Park House has a long Green Lady tradition and named modern testimony. Former resident Sharon Wood described a candle-like light in an unoccupied wing, violent sounds from a locked office later found undisturbed, footsteps on the roof and a service lift apparently moving by itself. John Tantalon published the account with cautious context, while Historic Environment Scotland verifies the Grade A listed house and its location. The property is private and the record must not imply public access.

Chessel’s Court

📍 Chessel’s Court, 240 Canongate · EH8 8AD

Chessel’s Court has a haunting tradition that can be traced at least to James Bone’s 1911 Edinburgh Revisited. Bone records Mrs Gordon hearing heavy breathing outside her door and her brother-in-law waking to find a tall veiled woman dressed in black standing beside his bed. Decades later, John Childs described a separate 1980s experience in which something seemed to climb across his bed while his landlady’s dog growled outside the room. Paranormal Database muddles this tradition with a fiery Canongate apparition who threatened to return after repeated fires, but older sources place that separate legend elsewhere near the head of the Canongate. The two stories should not be merged.

Covenanters' Prison

📍 Covenanters' Prison, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Greyfriars Place · EH1 2QQ

Visitors and staff at Covenanters' Prison have reported unexplained footsteps, voices and shadowy figures associated with the building's long and often difficult history.

Craigmillar Castle

📍 EH16 4SY

In May 1935 the Sunday Post reported a striking apparition at Craigmillar Castle: a dark, hooded or cloaked figure with tangled hair and riding boots fitted with spurs. The report sparked local interest and ghost-hunting visits, giving this tradition a much firmer date than the vague ‘ancient castle ghost’ label usually applied to the site. Historic Environment Scotland has since retold the episode as part of the castle’s folklore. Craigmillar has other ghost stories too, but this database entry stays focused on the specific 1935 figure because it has a recoverable contemporary newspaper source and unusually distinctive visual details.

Edinburgh Castle

📍 Castlehill / The Esplanade · EH1 2NG

A phantom piper is said to play beneath the Royal Mile, while a ghostly drummer warns of danger. The castle’s dungeons also have prisoner apparitions, including one accompanied by a foul smell.

Edinburgh Playhouse

📍 18-22 Greenside Place · EH1 3AA

Staff and visitors at Edinburgh Playhouse report phantom footsteps, unexplained voices and fleeting figures around backstage areas, corridors and the auditorium.

Edinburgh Vaults

Beneath South Bridge, visitors report Mr Boots’s heavy footfalls and a child called Jack tugging clothing. Other encounters include shadowy figures, disembodied voices and unexplained scratches or touches.

Festival Theatre

📍 Festival Theatre, 13–29 Nicolson Street · EH8 9FT

A long-serving Festival Theatre employee known to John Tantalon as Mark has reportedly experienced several unusual incidents in the building since the 1990s. The stories include a man with a wooden leg crossing the stage area and figures or movement seen around the lighting rig, sometimes linked in later retellings to the Great Lafayette and the fatal 1911 Empire Palace fire. The fire and Lafayette’s death are documented history; the identification of modern apparitions with its victims is not. A direct interview with Mark remains useful to establish exactly what he saw, where he saw it and whether other staff witnessed the same phenomena independently.