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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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Author investigator Francis Hitching placed television equipment in a London cellar supposedly

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haunted by a 17th century cavalier.

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On a flickering black and white screen he may have found the last vestiges, the final

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earthly remnants of a 300 year old warrior.

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The English countryside has been populated by so many people for so long a time that

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it has acquired a rich legacy of spirits and ghosts.

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A 200 year old monarch may pace the library of a great fortress.

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Henry VIII we are told still drags his gout-ridden foot through broken cloisters and cobwebbed

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passages.

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Long dead prisoners plead for mercy in empty dungeons.

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Even druids still haunt Stonehenge.

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Guillotine victims ride across the rolling plains carrying their severed heads.

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Every generation has added its ghostly collection of vampires, phantoms and monsters of the

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netherworld.

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Today a roll call of specters stretches the length of the kingdom.

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Perhaps it is the willingness of its citizens to believe in the supernatural.

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Whatever the cause, Great Britain wrote one expert is the most haunted place on earth.

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Ghosts have a tendency to stay in one place, usually the location of their demise.

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Since most English castles were built many centuries ago, the apparitions that haunt

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them have had enough time to scare enough people to become legends.

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The people who own these castles continue to live in them.

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Strain sights and hideous noises are considered part of the bargain along with poor plumbing

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and drafty rooms.

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Ghosts are accepted as eccentric members of the family and in many cases they were just

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that before they died.

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At Wolverton Manor for example we encounter the very rowdy ghost of Lord Thomas Trenchard.

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This story is told by his descendant, Captain Thimbleby.

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In the early 18th century Thomas Trenchard, after no doubt a very good dinner party with

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a lot of port in his belly, had a wager with his friend that he could take a horse and

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carriage up the great stairs which he indeed did.

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And in fact some of the stairs have been repaired where the edges have been chipped off.

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Now on earth he got down again, one doesn't know but he won his wager and we hear him

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going up the stairs every nine again over the years.

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A strange part of Wolverton Manor's ghostly carriage is that it has never been known to

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return down the stairs, so much for noisy apparitions.

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Authentic English ghosts are not known to physically attack people.

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On numerous occasions however they have frightened someone to death.

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This happened on a lovely country estate in Dorset and the story is told to us by Emma

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Leavesley.

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My family had owned this house for more than 400 years I think and there were legends that

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something monstrous appeared in the middle of the night and was so frightening that

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two of my ancestors had actually gone mad after they'd seen it.

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I hated sleeping there.

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I used to dread going to bed because I would always have nightmares there and I'd wake

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up in the middle of the night and think they were real and there was definitely something

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horrible about it.

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Anyway, one night when my grandmother was a very little girl, which was about 1880 or

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1890, she and her sister were living in this house, my grandmother at one end of a corridor

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and her sister at the other end, probably the same room that I was in, maybe even the

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same bed.

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One night they went to bed perfectly normally having a very good night to each other and

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what happened next, no one knows for certain but it was obviously absolutely horrifying.

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My grandmother rushed down the corridor to see what was happening as she opened the door.

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She thought she caught a glance of something so horrible that she nearly fainted but it

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disappeared almost immediately.

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The worst thing was that when she looked at the bed, her sister had stopped screaming

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and she was just lying there dead.

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I hated it as a story and I wish she'd never told me really because I still have nightmares

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about it and I'm sure I feel something that that poor girl went through when I slept in

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that room.

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In most hauntings, sounds are more common than sightings and ghostly rituals are usually

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performed by a single figure but in our next dramatization both sights and sounds occur

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and two 18th century Englishmen are locked together for eternity.

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Robin Wordsworth owns Bag Lake House and keeps alive the story of the double tragedy that

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took place in 1759.

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There was a man who lived here once called Squire William Light and he had the front

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of this house built onto an older house in 1719.

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This we know for a fact.

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The rest of the story is really legend.

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The idea is that Squire Light came out hunting perhaps a little drug.

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The water was shallow but deep enough to drown a drunken Squire.

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The Squires groom went searching for his long overdue master.

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Squire!

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Squire!

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Squire Light!

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Squire!

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Squire!

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Squire!

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Squire!

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Squire!

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Squire!

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The groom's wife found him near the pond.

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He told her his monstrous tale then died.

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That's the story and it's still believed in the village.

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People don't care to walk past this house at night.

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The younger people.

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And during the 40 years I've been here quite a number of level headed people have felt

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disturbances of various kinds and seen things third foot steps which can't be accounted for.

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After years of horrible unexplained sounds the local priest attempted to exercise both

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Squire Light and the groom from the household.

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His efforts were partially successful.

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Local citizens believe that the Squire is now confined to the chimney and moans

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complainingly when the wind blows.

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The groom however lingers outside and faithfully calls his master.

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Those who share the Squire's taste for whiskey claim that they see his specter rising from the pond

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when the moon is full.

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As we shall learn in our next story they should be thankful that he doesn't scream.

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Most castles are haunted by murky intangible apparitions.

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In Marshwood Vale however, Betiscombe Manor is haunted by a very tangible human skull

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that refuses to be buried.

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When provoked the skull's angry screams reverberate for miles.

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Michael Pinney, the current owner of Betiscombe Manor, is a direct descendant of Azariah Pinney

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who was exiled to the West Indies in 1685.

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While there he purchased a slave and inadvertently acquired a haunt.

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The legend of the screaming skull of Betiscombe is the fact that the manor is the only one

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who is the legend of the screaming skull of Betiscombe is the legend of a negro slave.

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There is no doubt about that and that is how it first grew up.

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It was the legend of a prince from Africa who was exported, went through the horror of the slave trade

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became a slave, came back as a body servant and he then said to his master

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the restitution you've got to see is that I am buried in my own land, not here.

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I'm a prince in my own country.

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Well, the legend says that he wasn't buried in his own land.

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He was taken and buried in Betiscombe Churchyard.

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The legend says that he was buried in his own land.

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The legend says that he was buried in his own land.

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The legend says that he was buried in his own land.

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The legend says that he was buried in his own land.

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The legend says that he was buried in his own land.

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Once buried, horrible screams rose from the grave.

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Louder and louder they grew until the skull, according to legend, worked its way to the surface.

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Every attempt to dispose of the skull has brought misfortune to those living in Betiscombe Manor.

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As recently as 1914, local witnesses claim that it has sweated blood.

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Today, it resides on an attic shelf in silence, at least for now.

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The ghosts of England are not restricted to drafty castles and lonely country estates.

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In the very heart of London, a 17th century cavalier replete with plumed hat and pantaloons resides in of all places, a wine cellar.

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In some form, a tavern has operated here for at least three centuries. Currently, it is called the George Inn.

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Bill Grundy is a documentary filmmaker for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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It was the summer of 1975. I just finished making a series of television films about the ghosts of London.

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And I came in here for a drink and the landlord came over to me and he said, like the films, pity it didn't, do I are a ghost?

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I said, you got one here in the George Inn? He said, yes, we have.

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I said, do you believe in ghosts? He said, no, but my wife does. I asked him to explain.

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He said, well, we've been here for years and there'd be no trouble at all.

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But one day, between 10 and 11 in the morning anyway before we opened, he said my wife went downstairs in the cellar and she came rushing back up, all white and trembling.

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And said, I'm never going in the cellar again. She said, it's the fellow down there.

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I said, we're not open yet. I can't see a man down there.

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And she said, no, this isn't an ordinary fellow. He's dressed like a cavalier.

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I mean, standing in the corner of the battle vaulting now. My wife still doesn't go down that cellar.

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Grundy contacted Francis Hitching, an author and investigator of Strange Phenomena.

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Hitching placed a camera and a videotape recorder in the supposedly haunted cellar.

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I've been investigating ghosts and other related phenomena for a number of years now and this sounds to me a particularly good and typical example of a ghost.

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That's to say, we're here in a very old building, one of the oldest basements in London, certainly part of the old London, up there is the street itself.

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And I dare say you can hear some noises which come across it from time to time.

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And the stories that we've heard, the two people, the witnesses, talking about somebody in Stuart costume.

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This is typical of the kind of appearance that you get. Somebody in costume appearing in an old building, sometimes at the same time, sometimes not.

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And I feel that it's one that's worth investigating with modern equipment.

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Hitching sealed the doors from the inside and remained alone in the cellar throughout the night.

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He focused his camera on a dark pillar in the middle of the room.

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Much to my surprise, we have found something. I'd like to have a look at it.

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It's a very surprising image which is coming on the screen in just a few moments.

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Now, I was here at the time that this was taken and I saw nothing myself.

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I think I was looking at the pillar at the time that it was there.

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But look, coming up on the screen is a most extraordinary something. What is it? Lights?

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It may be... if it's a ghost, is that what a ghost looks like?

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As I say, I think I was looking at the pillar at the time but there it is emerging on there.

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Nobody else was here and it's not a... it's not an earthly thing.

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It's nothing that could be created with a torch. It's got curious images which goes up like that.

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I think it's one of the most remarkable ghostly manifestations that's happened in my experience looking for them.

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Whether or not it's something that can be the same ghost that's gone away now.

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Whether or not it's the same ghost as they saw.

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Whether it's one of these manifestations that happen sometimes when people go out trying to look for things

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and instead of specifically what they're looking for, some other thing appears out of the fabric of the building.

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I just don't know. Until today, my theory was that under conditions of extreme emotion,

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that's to say great pain, great anguish, even great happiness,

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that somehow this emotion imprinted itself in the solid fabric of buildings

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and people were able to recognize it and it came out in the same way that clairvoyance and psychometrists, dousers,

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can pick hold of a solid object and tell you a lot of things about the people who were last there.

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That's until today. But today I've seen this thing and I can't explain it.

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And so my explanation yesterday has been torn away.

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What I believe tomorrow, I just don't know. I'll have to look at that again and again and perhaps one day I'll find out.

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What are ghosts and why do they keep repeating the same actions over and over again?

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One theory is that a haunting is a violent release of energy somehow frozen in space and time.

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When weather conditions are exactly right, the action is played back like a recording.

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Impossible. So were Xeroxing and Holography just a few short years ago.

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In fact, so were videotape replays like the one you're watching right now.

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People have been seeing and hearing ghosts for thousands of years.

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Soon we may know how and why.

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What a tremendous game that would be for science and what a tremendous loss for storytelling.