Black Dogs

I'm always enthusiastic about new books that take a tour of this country highlighting great places to visit and sites to see, it's even better when the book concentrates on Haunted locations, and in this case focussing on castles across England, Scotland and Wales. Read More »

Peter Underwood, a world renowned expert on the paranormal, has published a new book focussing on Irish Ghosts. I had great hopes for this book having owned a copy of his 1973 book Gazetteer of Scottish & Irish Ghosts for a number of years, and I'm pleased to say I've not being disappointed. Read More »

The single span Ivelet Bridge over the River Swale dates from 1687 and was an important crossing point on the 16 mile Corpse Way from Muker to the Churchyard at Grinton, which was once the only consecrated burial ground in the dale. Read More »

A phantom Black Dog is said to haunt Kettleness near Whitby. In Marc Alexander’s ‘To Anger the Devil’ which is a biography of the exorcist Reverend Dr Donald Omand, he describes how in the 1950s Rev Omand received letter from a schoolmaster detailing his experience with the dog and requesting an exorcism. Read More »

A spectral dog known as the Gwyllgi or the 'Dog of Darkness' is said to haunt the town. The dog appears with flaming red eyes, and is said to run from the castle to the town along an old route-way.

Directions: On the A4066

Leeds Castle is named after Led who is supposed to have been the Chief Minister of King Ethelbert IV of Kent. Originally a Saxon manor house called Esledes, built in AD857, it consisted of a wooden palisade and earthwork enclosure. It was granted to the Godwin family by King Edward the Confessor but did not become a stone castle until Robert Crevecoeur started upgrading it in 1119. Read More »

A number of phantom black hounds have been reported in the large hilltop cemetery at the end of Akeley Lane near Lock Haven University in Lock Haven, Clinton County. I'm not sure whether these dogs could have any relevance to a black, smoky form seen moving through the halls of Sloan Hall, the university art building adjacent to the cemetery. Read More »

This old story provides an explanation for the naming of the Black Dog Inn near Uplyme in Devon. The black dog seems to be a spirit guardian of treasure. Read More »

In 1825 a man reported being seeing a large headless phantom hound leap at him whilst he was in the vicinity of Manchester Cathedral.

An Iron Age hill fort once stood upon Meon Hill and it has been suggested that man has lived there from the Stone Age, but it a legend concerning the formation of the hill that has attracted my attention. Read More »

The Mount Misery area and the nearby Sweet Hollow Road has developed a reputation for being the source of strange experiences and hauntings. Given the number and variety of these reports I suspect many could be categorized as modern myths or urban legends, but as always I would love to hear from anybody who has had genuine experiences here. Read More »

The following folktale entitled ‘Nansi Llwyd and the Dog of Darkness’ appeared in ‘The Welsh Fairy Book’ (1908) by W. Jenkyn Thomas.  NANSI LLWYD was walking in the dusk of the evening towards Aberystruth, and she was in a very bad temper, for she was longing to get married, and according to all the omens she never would. Read More »

This 16th century heavily fortified castle was built by Gilbert Balfour from Fife, brother-in-law of Mary Queen of Scots. Balfour and his brothers had been involved in the murder of Cardinal Beaton in 1546 and had been sentenced to serve time as oar men on a French galley. Read More »

The Old Black Dog Inn has a curious story as to how it acquired its name. A local man who lived in a farm house that once formed part of a mansion destroyed in the civil war, found his house haunted by a black dog. The dog manifested by the hearth almost every night. Consider the article, The Lyme Regis Black Dog. Read More »

Being born and bred in Lancashire I've grown up surrounded by the rich folklore, ghost stories and paranormal experiences that are embedded in the county, call me bias, but we have some of the most diverse and well documented stories from the famous Pendle witches to headless boggarts, lonely ghosts, black cat sightings and UFO's. Read More »

Located on St Patrick's Isle, Peel, Isle of Man, the castle is reached over a causeway. The castle buildings are now in ruin but the outer walls are mostly intact. The first fortifications were built by the King Magnus Barelegs of Norway in the 11th Century. The Viking castle was made of wood, though there were earlier Celtic monastic structures on the island. Read More »

Radcliffe Tower is all that remains of a fifteenth century (1403) manor house and is a Grade I listed building. At twenty feet high, this ruined remnant of the manors demolition in the nineteenth century is linked to a tragic tale of a stepmother arranging the murder of her husband’s daughter and is reputed to be haunted by a phantom Black Dog. Read More »

The Brandywine Creek State Park in northern Delaware near Wilmington is home to appearances of a large dog or fox which is often seen to rise up into the apparition of Gil Thoreau, an outdoorsman. Not much information is known on this creature.

Now converted into a series of private residences, the reputedly haunted, Grade II listed Savernake Forest Hotel was built by George William Frederick Brudenell-Bruce, 2nd Marquess of Ailesbury and Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire (Born 20 November 1804 – Died 6 January 1878) in 1864. Read More »

The dark brooding presence of Schiehallion (pronounced She-hal-e-on)- the fairy hill of the Caledonians - looms over the Eastern end of Rannoch moor like a voluminous guardian. The mountain is one of the traditional haunts of otherworld beings. Read More »

A Phantom Black Dog was said to haunt the A6 around Shap Pass, roughly nine miles south of Penrith. In his book Ghosts of the North, Jack Hallam states ‘Many drivers reported seeing, in the beam of their headlights, a big dog loping along for 200 to 300 yards, before disappearing over a stone wall at a place where there is a 300ft sheer drop’. Read More »

"Snarly Yow" is the name given to a phantom hound which haunted a section of the National Pike near Turner's Gap (Frederick County). The hound was first mentioned by Madeleine V. Dahlgren in 1882. Her book South Mountain Magic details no less than a dozen sightings of the beast. One account is from a Daniel Mesick, whose father kicked at a huge dog near Dame's Quarter. Read More »

A phantom wolf supposedly haunts this ridge south of New Hope. Information on the wolf is scarce (read non-existent) but I find it interesting that a number of sightings were reported in the last few years of the so-called Yardley Yeti, which despite the name was a dog-like creature, from the region around New Hope.

In his 'Memorabilia domestica; or, Parish life in the North of Scotland', Donald Sage (born 1789 – died 1869) described a treasure legend in the parish of Kildonan with a phantom Black Dog guardian attached to it. Read More »

Little Eaton in Derbyshire has a black dog legend. It is said that the large black animal was a working, hunting hound owned by the last squire of the village, which howled constantly for three days and nights as its master was dying. When the dog ceased howling, the household staff and the villagers knew that the squire had died. Read More »