5 spooky stories from the Isle of Wight

There are things that go creak in the night on the Isle of Wight, and not all of them are easily explained!

The Island is known to be one of Britain’s most haunted havens and for many years, writers and ghost hunters have been baffled by the goings on in the dark corners and spooky spots of the Wight.

But what are we to make of this black side of the Wight? Do Islanders simply have more active imaginations, or are the poltergeists and ghouls more regularly seen here.

Island journalist and author Gay Baldwin has written a series of books about the phenomena, and knows a bit about all things spectral.

She says the spooky nature of the Wight is a mystery but it may be due to powerful unseen energy or ley lines which run under the Island.

So, as we have established, the Isle of Wight can also be described as the Isle of Fright, so where are our top five spooky spots?

1. Appuldurcombe House, Wroxall

This haunted mansion with its 365 windows and 52 rooms is now simply a shell but the ghosts remain. They include a phantom carriage, brown-clad monks, dark shapes glimpsed flitting through the grounds. A baby's cry is heard and unseen hands leaf through the visitors’ book.

2. Knighton Gorges, Newchurch

This is recognised as probably as the Island's most haunted place, every New Year's Eve, people gather at midnight to wait for the ghostly house to re-appear. A pair of weathered stone gateposts are all that remain of the manor house of Knighton Gorges but among the things seen are a coach and horses, poltergeist lights and stone creatures on the gate pillars.

3. Carisbrooke Castle, Carisbrooke

It may be almost 1,000 years old but within its walls, ghostly presences are to be felt. In the famous well house where donkeys work the wooden tread wheel, the face of a dead girl who drowned in the 160ft deep well, has been seen. Other phantoms include a Victorian lady in grey and tragic Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Charles I, who died a prisoner here and is buried in Newport Minster.

4. Hare and Hounds pub, Arreton

The story of Micah Morey is the stuff of Isle of Wight legend. Morey killed his young grandson in cold blood in 1737, was tried and hanged, and his corpse left rotting near the Hare and Hounds.  The gibbet crossbeam, complete with a notch cut in it beside the date of his execution can be seen in the pub and Morey's spirit can also be seen, roaming Gallows Hill, carrying a large axe.

5. Ventnor Botanic Gardens, Undercliff Drive

For almost a century the world-renowned chest hospital Royal National Hospital specialised in treating the killer disease, tuberculosis. When the huge building was pulled down in 1969, the site was transformed into gardens. Today long-dead patients are still seen and heard. A sickly, consumptive-looking ghost, and phantom nurses in old-fashioned uniforms walk the gardens.

Thank you to Gay Baldwin for their support with the content on this web page.