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Haunted Britain and Ireland
A spine-chilling exploration of the haunted sites of Britain and Ireland, and an indispensable guide for ghost-hunters everywhere
More than 130 haunted sites - and many more ghosts - are described in evocative and atmospheric detail
A wealth of biographical information and extracts from original documents place the specters in their historical context
Written by inveterate ghost hunter and professional tour guide, Richard Jones, whose detailed research reveals many ghost stories that have never before appeared in print
Superb photography and contemporary illustrations supplement the text, and maps pinpoint the sites
More than 130 haunted sites - and many more ghosts - are described in evocative and atmospheric detail
A wealth of biographical information and extracts from original documents place the specters in their historical context
Written by inveterate ghost hunter and professional tour guide, Richard Jones, whose detailed research reveals many ghost stories that have never before appeared in print
Superb photography and contemporary illustrations supplement the text, and maps pinpoint the sites
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
4 people are currently reading
600 people want to read
About the author
Richard Jones
40 books4 followersRichard Jones is the author of 18 books, two of which (Uncovering Jack the Ripper’s London and Jack the Ripper: The Casebook) are about the 1888 Whitechapel Murders, and several others (Walking Dickensian London and History and Mystery London of which cover other aspects of East End history.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 2, 2024
Gorgeous large scale book about various weird, disturbing and sometimes funny folklore surrounding a wide variety of supernatural phenomena on the British Isles. The book is divided into chapters by geographical area, each chapter being full of maps and high quality photographs of the area in the question.
Among my favourites here is the Cornish story about the ghost of the Reverend F. W. Densham, whose sermons were so boring the congregation avoided him - instead walking a long distance every Sunday morning to attend services in other churches with more charismatic priests. The result being that Densham's ghost now haunts Warleggan Church. It is also curious to read about a British fishing village called Dunwich, reduced to a small fraction of its original size thanks to most the ground it was built upon falling into the sea. It seems like American horror author H. P. Lovecraft not only modelled his own Dunwich upon that town but also Innsmouth, another fictional town in Massachusetts that frequently appears in his work.
More interesting details: How many of the ghost stories in the UK seem to be connected to either the English Civil War or the Wars of the Roses, quite a few ghosts being said to be revenant nobles who either fell in those wars or were executed during them.
Likewise it is fascinating to read not just about Lord Byron's ancestral home Newstead Abbey and all the ghosts haunting it, blamed on the misadventures of his exceptionally dysfunctional family, but also the mysterious lights in the sky above Longdendale in Derbyshire. These lights are usually attributed to fairies or witches, but I suspect they would probably be called UFO's had they first been sighted after WW2. In which case people in the area would instead be interpreting the mysterious lights as extraterrestrial spacecraft and not fairies or witches. Of course, as people like Jacques Vallée, John A. Keel and Whitley Strieber have demonstrated, present day stories about encounters with extraterrestrial life follow very similar tropes as older folklore about elves and fairies to an extent that cannot be coincidental. Longdendale is also home to stories of phantom aircraft, a topic British ufologist Nick Redfern has written about in great detail.
Yet another fact I learned from this book and took note of is the existence of a haunted castle in Ireland known as the Charles Fort, way before a man with the birth name of Charles Fort became one of the most influential paranormal investigators ever. Hence the term "Forteana" being applied to the study of the paranormal with an open mind towards exotic theories and accounts that can so far not be explained satisfyingly from a rational scientific perspective. I find this synchronicity worth remarking on.
From a Fortean angle it is so, so interesting how the folklore of the British isles contain so, so many accounts of giant black cats and dogs that clearly look and act as something else (or something more) than everyday flesh and blood animals. Among the many examples described by Richard Jones in this book, I am in particular fascinated by the mysterious hideous cat haunting Killakee House in Dublin and the Barguest of Troller's Grill in North Yorkshire. I had already been familiar with Black Shuck, the ghostly black dog appearing in the folklore of East Anglia and Essex, but many of these spectral black dogs and cats described here were completely new to me.
This book can absolutely be recommended to anyone with an interest in the paranormal, folklore of Britain and Ireland or even unusual travelogues. Thanks to the Centre for Fortean Zoology for recommending this book on their web TV show "On the Track". (CFZ founder Jonathan Downes' own book about an assortment of strange and terrible entities in Cornwall's folklore, The Owlman and Others, can also be recommended for people who enjoyed this one)
Among my favourites here is the Cornish story about the ghost of the Reverend F. W. Densham, whose sermons were so boring the congregation avoided him - instead walking a long distance every Sunday morning to attend services in other churches with more charismatic priests. The result being that Densham's ghost now haunts Warleggan Church. It is also curious to read about a British fishing village called Dunwich, reduced to a small fraction of its original size thanks to most the ground it was built upon falling into the sea. It seems like American horror author H. P. Lovecraft not only modelled his own Dunwich upon that town but also Innsmouth, another fictional town in Massachusetts that frequently appears in his work.
More interesting details: How many of the ghost stories in the UK seem to be connected to either the English Civil War or the Wars of the Roses, quite a few ghosts being said to be revenant nobles who either fell in those wars or were executed during them.
Likewise it is fascinating to read not just about Lord Byron's ancestral home Newstead Abbey and all the ghosts haunting it, blamed on the misadventures of his exceptionally dysfunctional family, but also the mysterious lights in the sky above Longdendale in Derbyshire. These lights are usually attributed to fairies or witches, but I suspect they would probably be called UFO's had they first been sighted after WW2. In which case people in the area would instead be interpreting the mysterious lights as extraterrestrial spacecraft and not fairies or witches. Of course, as people like Jacques Vallée, John A. Keel and Whitley Strieber have demonstrated, present day stories about encounters with extraterrestrial life follow very similar tropes as older folklore about elves and fairies to an extent that cannot be coincidental. Longdendale is also home to stories of phantom aircraft, a topic British ufologist Nick Redfern has written about in great detail.
Yet another fact I learned from this book and took note of is the existence of a haunted castle in Ireland known as the Charles Fort, way before a man with the birth name of Charles Fort became one of the most influential paranormal investigators ever. Hence the term "Forteana" being applied to the study of the paranormal with an open mind towards exotic theories and accounts that can so far not be explained satisfyingly from a rational scientific perspective. I find this synchronicity worth remarking on.
From a Fortean angle it is so, so interesting how the folklore of the British isles contain so, so many accounts of giant black cats and dogs that clearly look and act as something else (or something more) than everyday flesh and blood animals. Among the many examples described by Richard Jones in this book, I am in particular fascinated by the mysterious hideous cat haunting Killakee House in Dublin and the Barguest of Troller's Grill in North Yorkshire. I had already been familiar with Black Shuck, the ghostly black dog appearing in the folklore of East Anglia and Essex, but many of these spectral black dogs and cats described here were completely new to me.
This book can absolutely be recommended to anyone with an interest in the paranormal, folklore of Britain and Ireland or even unusual travelogues. Thanks to the Centre for Fortean Zoology for recommending this book on their web TV show "On the Track". (CFZ founder Jonathan Downes' own book about an assortment of strange and terrible entities in Cornwall's folklore, The Owlman and Others, can also be recommended for people who enjoyed this one)
April 15, 2016
This was an excellent and interesting book to read! It was nice for a change to actually read about the hauntings in a somewhat fictional manner, as if the writer was telling the story while he talked about the haunted areas. The pictures were beautiful (and scary!). It is one of the most interesting haunting books I've read.
March 27, 2021
2 / 5 for 'Haunted Britain and Ireland' by Richard Jones
I was quite surprised by this book, but for all the wrong reasons. I read 'Jack the Ripper: The Casebook' by the same author last month and absolutely loved it. I was really looking forward to this guide to Britain & Irelands better-known hauntings, hoping that it would be as excellent as the Ripper book.
Unfortunately, this book was a considerably poorer effort, in comparison.
Don't get me wrong, as a geographical listing of UK hauntings, it is decent, and the layout is pretty with keyed maps and some lovely photographs. It was all just very, very boring. The writing was bland and uninspired, sometimes almost leaning towards fictional accounts of the reasons behind the supposed hauntings - this writing style was SO different to the Ripper book, I struggled to believe it was the same author.
I've always loved books about ghosts, whether that's horror novels or factual accounts of supposed real hauntings - many of the books I've read have been good and many have been poop.
Unfortunately, this one - in my opinion - is one of the poop ones. What a shame.
2 / 5
I was quite surprised by this book, but for all the wrong reasons. I read 'Jack the Ripper: The Casebook' by the same author last month and absolutely loved it. I was really looking forward to this guide to Britain & Irelands better-known hauntings, hoping that it would be as excellent as the Ripper book.
Unfortunately, this book was a considerably poorer effort, in comparison.
Don't get me wrong, as a geographical listing of UK hauntings, it is decent, and the layout is pretty with keyed maps and some lovely photographs. It was all just very, very boring. The writing was bland and uninspired, sometimes almost leaning towards fictional accounts of the reasons behind the supposed hauntings - this writing style was SO different to the Ripper book, I struggled to believe it was the same author.
I've always loved books about ghosts, whether that's horror novels or factual accounts of supposed real hauntings - many of the books I've read have been good and many have been poop.
Unfortunately, this one - in my opinion - is one of the poop ones. What a shame.
2 / 5
June 5, 2017
This is a well-written book with descriptions that really give you a feeling of the atmosphere. The book is divided into geographical areas with useful maps. The photos were stunning. I wish there were photos of each place but that may not have been possible. Some of the stories I had read or heard before but Richard's narrative added new details.
For me this is not a book to sit and read until you finish it in one or two sittings, like a fiction book, but one you sample here and there as you gave time. But some of the stories were so interesting I would often keep reading.
A comprehensive collection of ghost stories
For me this is not a book to sit and read until you finish it in one or two sittings, like a fiction book, but one you sample here and there as you gave time. But some of the stories were so interesting I would often keep reading.
A comprehensive collection of ghost stories
August 2, 2011
I liked this book better than the Castles or Houses books of the same name. While there were some overlap of items, this book offered a much wider selection of stories and snapshots of places. Which is obvious from the fact that this book didn't focus on a specific thing like a castle or a house. This seemed to allow for much more variety of stories, which I enjoyed very much more than the previously 2 mentioned books.
March 18, 2012
Well-presented coffee-table style book, with some beautiful photography and a broad spread of reputedly haunted locations - except not one in South Yorkshire, so I was a teensy bit disappointed by that!
Read
June 17, 2019A decent guide if you want to go looking for famous haunted places, but I found it rather bland in its storytelling of why each place was supposed to be haunted. Several of the stories I had heard before but they had been told in much better ways and, while I don't believe or disbelieve in Ghosts and hauntings, several of the stories came across as completely far fetched just because of the way the story was told.
July 31, 2017
Interesting tales, but only a couple of good photos. I want to see the proof!
January 19, 2019
I love this book.
July 8, 2022
Beautiful and haunting pictures.
January 8, 2024
I really liked this book. The location stories are fairly short and to the point but varied in content.
October 5, 2012
Honestly, I am left unsatisfied; not the least bit chilled. When an author uses half of the text to describe the setting of a story, and only a sentence or two to actually expand upon the happenings, they are not doing the story justice.
Also, the accompanying photos were rarely linked to the story- in fact, the images preceded the story, often giving away key points before you reached the tale.
The author has a fondness for overusing words such as 'sundry' and phrases such as 'shimmering shade'. This guy needs a thesaurus.
The only positive thing I can say about this book is that it is a good guide if you were ever to travel to England for a ghost hunting excursion.
Also, the accompanying photos were rarely linked to the story- in fact, the images preceded the story, often giving away key points before you reached the tale.
The author has a fondness for overusing words such as 'sundry' and phrases such as 'shimmering shade'. This guy needs a thesaurus.
The only positive thing I can say about this book is that it is a good guide if you were ever to travel to England for a ghost hunting excursion.
October 3, 2010
A perfect book for the armchair ghost hunter. Some haunted gems to find in here, great photos and key too, well laid out.
January 23, 2009
Odd collection of ghost stories.
April 11, 2013
Just love books about things that go bump in the night, and the photos are great too.
July 21, 2017
Spooky stories, good photos. I liked this book, but it felt just like any other Haunted Europe book I have seen before.
Read
April 14, 2019Read too long ago to accurately rate.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews