CASTLE RUSHEN
Castletown
Isle of Man
The haunting of this castle by a mysterious , lady had been going on for many years and will continue for many years to come`, is the stated view of the curator here. In 1972 he admitted he had never seen the ghost himself but found it impossible to disbelieve all the people who had. A large number of executions have been carried out within the castle and the one suggestion is that the phantom is that of an innocent woman hung for murdering her son. The boy died from natural causes. One of the guides saw the figure of a woman in a long grey dress, with a young boy, standing near the drawbridge. But as soon as he approached to check their tickets they vanished. In 1960 a group of young adolescents handed the curator a signed statement reporting the details of the woman that they had seen when the castle was empty and locked. She had appeared at the top of the Eagle Tower. The wife of the warden is yet another witness who saw the woman in grey twice, once near the drawbridge and a few years later near the dungeon. Top

TANTALOO
Near Skye Hill
Ramsey
Isle of Man
After a period of many years of inactivity the ghost of Tantaloo, the site of an old mill was seen by a group of tourist hiking in Glen Auldyn in 1971, and by some local students in 1975. Two of the group of five from the mainland admitted seeing the weird figures of ` An old woman in grey cloak and a peculiar head-dress which she was waving about`. It has been impossible to identify the woman or the date the unusual head gear though it has been suggested it resembles the type of that worn by a Victorian fish-wife. The phantom faded away after only a few seconds on both occasions. Top

WISTARIA COTTAGE
Newchurch
Isle of White
After including details of phenomenal smells occurring in a dentist's surgery in London in my book, 'Our Haunted Kingdom' I received a strong complaint from a former owner of the property that although the tantalising odour of frying eggs and bacon had been mentioned, the smell of baking bread and cakes had been omitted from my report. The lady who had lived in the house for many years has often experienced this phenomena despite the fact that the old kitchen from where the smells originate had been disused for over one hundred years. If the ghost are a form of electricity, then what are odours? Are they real or merely an associated hallucination, activating the taste buds by some mysterious force? We will probably never know. Here in Wistaria Cottage, a 300 year old building which serves the village of Newchurch as a store and post office, is, according to Guy Steadman and Ray Anker, similarly 'haunted'. Originally it was a slaughterhouse but by the early 1900's had become a bakery and it was the activities at this time that obviously still pervade the shop. Often customers will remark upon the delicious smell of baking bread or sometimes even meat pies which originates apparently from the shelves fitted to the boarding in front of the disused ovens. Barbara Jacob, the current owner of the shop, is in no way worried. `I find it rather attractive`, she said ` but I wish whatever it is would bake something for me`. Top