Ghost stories, haunted hotels and witchcraft murders - A Warwickshire supernatural trail
At a glance
Time: 1 day
Supernatural stories are steeped with hearsay and tradition but for those who want to visit places with a ghost story to tell, we’ve got an itinerary for you. There are the haunted buildings - the 12th century monastery turned luxury hotel where a murdered abbot still refuses to rest, the castle whose most famous ghost was essentially invented as a tourist attraction and is all the more interesting for it, the neo-Gothic mansion rated by the AA as the most haunted hotel in Britain and used as a film set for a classic horror film. And then there is the darker, stranger material that lies out in the fields and on the hilltops of the south - the witchcraft that persisted in this county long after it should have died, the standing stones steeped in curses, and the unsolved murder on Meon Hill in 1945 that has never been satisfactorily explained and probably never will.
Key highlights
- Gaveston's Cross at Blacklow Hill - a royal favourite beheaded on a Warwickshire hillside in 1312
- Coombe Abbey - Abbot Geoffrey's murdered ghost and the cursing stablehand Matilda
- Warwick Castle's Ghost Tower and the revealing history of how ghost stories get made
- Ettington Park - Britain's most haunted hotel, used in the 1963 film The Haunting
- Stratford Ghost Walk - award-winning lantern-lit tour of haunted Stratford
Day 1 – The Haunted Buildings: Blood, Monks, Lady Emma and the Ghost Walk
Gaveston's Cross
We begin our story where a medieval horror story refuses to rest. On 19 June 1312, Piers Gaveston - favourite of Edward II - was brought to a wooded hillside north of Warwick and killed. Legend says that his severed head rolled beneath a furze bush, later recovered by a wandering friar.
A sandstone cross now stands among the trees, raised in 1832 and inscribed with a harsh judgement: “the minion of a hateful king - in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.” Yet the story lingers. On still, dim evenings, faint bells are said to echo across the hill, with no visible source.
Hidden in private woodland just off the A46, the site feels deliberately concealed - a place where history has never quite settled. This story sets the tone for the start of Warwickshire’s ghost trail, in a landscape where the past does not lie quiet.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Gaveston's Cross is on private land, NO public access.
Stop 1: Coombe Abbey Hotel
Brinklow Road, Binley, Coventry, CV3 2AB
Built as a Cistercian abbey in 1150 by Richard de Camvill, Coombe Abbey passed through Henry VIII's dissolution in 1539, several aristocratic families - including the Haringtons, who sheltered the young Princess Elizabeth here-— and eventually the Craven family, who held it for over two centuries until the 1920s. Capability Brown was called in during the early 1770s to landscape the parkland, and the building eventually became a hotel in 1992.
Local tradition holds that Abbot Geoffrey, allegedly murdered here in 1345 with his killer never found, appears as a hooded figure in the grounds and is blamed for the poltergeist activity in the kitchens. A second presence, Matilda - said to have been a stable hand who died after losing a child - is reputed to have placed a curse on all children born within the building. Whether or not you believe any of it, Coombe Abbey is extraordinary - the grounds, the architecture and the sheer weight of history make it worth the visit entirely on its own terms. Lunch is available in the hotel.
Find on map
Stop 2: Warwick Castle & the Ghost Tower
Warwick Castle, Warwick, CV34 4QU
Warwick Castle's most famous ghost is Sir Fulke Greville - Jacobean poet, statesman and castle restorer - stabbed by his manservant Ralph Haywood in 1628 after Haywood discovered he had been left less than perhaps expected in Greville's will. The murder was terrible: Greville survived for a month in agonising pain before dying from infection, while Haywood immediately ran to his own room and stabbed himself four times in the chest. What makes this ghost story particularly interesting, however, is what it reveals about how ghost stories are made. The first recorded mention of Greville haunting the castle dates from the financially strained 1920s, under an Earl who needed visitors. In 1973, under Lord Brooke's ownership, the rooms of the Watergate Tower were opened to the public under the name of the Ghost Tower. Scholarly research later confirmed that Greville almost certainly never lived in that tower, and that the murder took place in London, not Warwick. This is a ghost story that tells us as much about the business of tourism as the supernatural - and for that reason it is more interesting to visit, not less. The castle has older and stranger presences too: the Grey Lady who predates Greville's ghost by decades; the black dog of Moll Bloxham, a servant's curse made physical; and on certain misty mornings, the phantom armies reported on the castle grounds. Read more at Our Warwickshire.
Find on map
Stop 3: Ettington Park Hotel
Alderminster, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 8BU
Six miles south of Stratford, on a site continuously inhabited for over two thousand years and owned by the same family - the Shirleys, traceable to the Domesday Book. The house as it stands is a spectacular neo-Gothic Victorian mansion, remodelled in its current Gothic form between 1858 and 1862, and once recognised by the AA as the most haunted hotel in Britain. Its exterior was used in 1963 as Hill House in Robert Wise's The Haunting - one of the finest horror films ever made - and the building earns that connection entirely on its own atmospheric terms.
Local stories are told including that of Lady Emma, believed to be a former governess, is the most frequently reported presence: a white-gowned figure who glides along the corridors at night and disappears into the walls, visible also from the veranda at dusk. The two Shirley boys who drowned in the River Stour in the 1800s are blamed for various pranks involving moved objects. A man and his dog cross the reception area on winter evenings and walk into the library, vanishing as they go. The library has been the site of books leaving shelves without assistance, billiard sounds from empty rooms and temperature drops with no mechanical explanation. Dinner here is the ideal end to the evening before the night's final stop - the restaurant is genuinely excellent, and the experience of sitting in officially Britain's most haunted hotel as darkness falls over the Stour is not easily forgotten.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis ac volutpat tortor. Suspendisse arcu diam, lobortis vitae orci vel, sodales feugiat quam. Suspendisse in semper sem. Donec ornare molestie ligula eu sodales. Praesent vulputate nisl vitae ex maximus, consectetur ultricies purus fringilla. Duis rutrum magna nec mollis fringilla. Cras quam mi, laoreet sed velit at, finibus rutrum massa. Sed faucibus eros vel odio rutrum, id consectetur leo dignissim. Fusce nec libero ligula. Vestibulum luctus a eros et interdum. Etiam sed pharetra elit, et pharetra velit. Phasellus ac augue aliquet, viverra tellus vitae, laoreet nisi. Aenean sed tellus vel ligula suscipit eleifend ac sed arcu. In metus nibh, aliquam ut ipsum sed, vestibulum posuere libero. In ac fringilla turpis, ut efficitur nisi.
Find on map
Stop 4: Stratford Ghost Walk
Meeting point: Waterside, opposite the junction with Sheep Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 6BA
End the day on the lantern-lit streets of Stratford. The award-winning Stratford Ghost Walk - established in 2002 and consistently one of the most highly reviewed ghost walks in the country - takes visitors on a 90-minute evening tour through the haunted streets of Shakespeare's birthplace, led by professional costumed guides who have been delivering what reviewers regularly call "fantastic storytelling" and "genuinely chilling" experiences for over two decades. Ancient creaky buildings seeping with tales of witches, a 17th century haunted tearoom, a jilted bride and the theatre ghost - all told well. The walk runs on selected evenings throughout the year; check the website and book ahead. More information on Straford Ghost Walk
If you are based in Warwick rather than Stratford, the Weird Walk of Warwick - a newer but fast-growing 90-minute ghost and history walk through Warwick town centre, starting outside the Lord Leycester Hospital - is an excellent alternative. It runs on selected dates and is booking up quickly.
Find on map