10 of England’s Most Haunted Highways to Brave this Halloween

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If you’re brave enough to undertake some car-based ghost hunting this All Hallows Eve then there’s no shortage of haunted roads to discover across England.

Bedfordshire

At the roundabout which marks the junction of Tavistock Street, Union Street and Clapham Road in Bedford you may happen upon Black Tom. The 19th Century outlaw was said to have been executed and buried here with a stake impaled in his heart to prevent him from ever returning. Various accounts in recent years suggest it didn’t work, with witnesses describing a figure with a broken neck staggering around the area before disappearing.

Cheshire

On Bolton’s Belmont Road is the gruesome figure of a just-hanged man, eyes popping from his head and still with the hangman’s noose around his neck. Reportedly he was wrongly hanged for highway robbery and manifests in protest. More recently the site has also been haunted by the victims of a fatal car crash. Witnesses report hearing the screech of tyres and screams but no car is to be seen.

The M6 between junctions 16-19 is believed to be Britain’s most haunted stretch of motorway. Roman soldiers and victims of the Civil War are among the ghostly figures seen. Check out the full spooky story here.

Devon

On Ashleigh Road in Barnstaple, Devon, the ghost of highwayman Tom Faggus was last spotted in 2005, according to the Paranormal Database. Faggus, like Robin Hood, would only steal from the rich during his 17th century crime spree. Finally, after much effort he was captured and killed at a tavern and he is believed to still haunt the area.

Between Tavistock and Dartmoor on what is now the A386 you may be unfortunate enough to encounter the ghost of Lady Howard, riding in a coach made from the bones of her dead husbands and pulled by headless horses. As a child Mary had grown up in the stately Fitzford House, but after her father died by suicide, she was sold by King James I to the Earl of Northumberland. She was married to his brother who died shortly afterwards. Mary would later elope with Thomas Darcy, who also died within a few months of matrimony. Two further husbands came along and then departed, hence there being sufficient bones for her ghoulish transportation. As if all this wasn’t enough, her escort along the road is said to be a fierce hellhound.

Suffolk

On the A12 from Ipswich toward Keeningland, near Blythburgh Common two ghouls have been spotted regularly for more than 200 years. The first is a woman in a long flowing dress, her accomplice a highwayman. Nobody knows who they are or how they came to meet their ends.

Northumberland

Residents of Buckton face the familiar sight of Grizelda the Highwaywomen who appears regularly at the end of every month. Dressed in a man’s garb she is claimed to have stopped a stagecoach which was carrying an execution order for a fellow criminal.

Surrey

In January 2007 on the A31 at Hogs Back a driver claimed to have witnessed an old box carriage crossing the road ahead. It was raining and the carriage was lit only by a dim lantern. What' freaked the driver out was that as he reached the spot where the carriage had crossed he realised there was no road there. On the same spot over 50 years earlier another traveller stopped to assist a woman in a long white dress standing by the roadside. She, too disappeared without trace.

Yorkshire

Terrifying canines are said to haunt the minor roads of West Riding in Yorkshire. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë writes: “As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.” Over in the Dales around Whitby travellers would report encounters with a “Barghest” that would bear its huge teeth and claws, before disappearing into thin air. Meanwhile, on the roads around Atwick in East Riding a headless highwayman lurks in the shadows. According to reports he remains astride his horse as he haunts the roads where he once demanded travellers to “Stand and Deliver!”

Finally, the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass in South Yorkshire is claimed to be Britain’s most haunted highway. Leaping ghouls, haunting songs and floating monks are just some of the apparitions seen here. For all the ghoulish details click here.

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