York
York has been described as the most haunted city in Europe. This reputation is hardly surprising. In its time, York has been garrisoned by the Romans and settled by the Vikings. It has been a northern center of dissent. In 1536, a local lawyer, Robert Aske, led 35,000 peaceful protestors on the Pilgrimage of Grace– a protest against the dissolution of the monasteries- only to find himself hung in chains over the gate of York Castle.
Aske’s spirit seems content to rest in peace. Not so many others in York, including his fellow rebel from another era, Sir Roger de Clifford, who was similarly executed at York Castle for his uprising against Edward II in 1322. De Clifford now haunts the part of the castle known as Clifford’s Tower. Elsewhere in the city, The Golden Fleece pub, former favorite haunt of members of the wool merchant’s guild, is reputedly haunted by at least fifteen spirits, earning it the reputation of York’s most haunted pub.
One of these ghosts is a Canadian airman, Geoff Monroe, who, in 1945 had the misfortune to kill himself by falling out of the window of his room at the Inn. Modern guests occupying the same chamber often describe being disturbed by an icy touch. They wake to see the uniformed airman watching them. However, the pub’s most chilling ghostly sighting occurred in 2002, when a group of drinkers were astonished by the sight of a man in seventeenth-century clothing walking past the bar into a wall in front of them. What was particularly terrifying was the fact the ghost paused and turned to look straight at the drinkers before continuing on his journey.
One of York’s most fascinating ghost stories is the Roman soldiers in the cellars of the Treasurer’s House. In 1953, a young apprentice engineer, Harry Martindale was working in the basement, when he heard the blow of a horn. Suddenly, out of the cellar wall came a cart and a troop of Roman soldiers in full uniform- visible only from the knees upwards. Terrified, Harry fell off his ladder but recovered sufficiently to tell his tale. At the time, people laughed at him.
But his descriptions of the uniforms and equipment of the soldiers were too exact to be an invention. Excavations in the 1970s discovered that the Roman road to the old garrison ran straight through the cellar- fifteen inches below the floor level, which explained why Harry’s soldiers were invisible only above the knees.