It's fright night in city of spooks

YORK is not just for the living. No one enjoys strolling down the ancient streets, touring the churches and visiting the hostelries more than the undead. Like tourists, ghosts are drawn inexorably to York, although they create fewer traffic problems. Such is the city's popularity with the deceased it was named as the most haunted in Europe this year.

Spectral immigration is at an all-time high. From a hardcore of about 40 York spooks, whose exploits have been retold around the fireside for generations, the Ghost Research Foundation International (GRFI) reckons to have catalogued 140. That's a lot of banshee for your buck.

Great news for the ghost industry - the walks, boat rides and books based around York's supernatural sightings have more ghouls than they know what to do with.

But what if you're afraid of ghosts? What happens to those old-fashioned folk to whom a face-to-face encounter with the walking corpse of a purgatorial soul is not a dream come true, but the stuff of nightmares?

If York truly is the spookiest spot on the continent, Hallowe'en ought to be hell on earth. Literally. Where can thefearful go on this most scary of nights?

There are two options. Option one: stay in and lock your door. This carries its own risks.

So prolific is the ghost population that anyone living in a pre-Barratt house might find they have inadvertently bolted themselves in with a playful poltergeist. Meanwhile those little trick or treat terrors will target your home for an egging if you refuse to answer the door.

Option two: go out. But how do you seek the comfort of other mortals without bumping into an immortal along the way?

The answer is, with great difficulty.

Even a night out at the pub is fraught with danger. The typical York tavern is seething with spirits, and not all are 40 per cent proof. This city has more inn spectres than North Yorkshire police.

Some pubs, like the Golden Fleece on Pavement, or the Black Swan, Peasholme Green, are home to any number of interchangeable ghosts.

Some pubs have a named ghost. Green Jenny is the mysterious apparition said to stalk the Five Lions, Walmgate. Others just have a presence.

The Olde Starre Inne on Stonegate has a skeleton room, known to be the haunt of drinkers past and present; footsteps have been heard on the deserted stairs of the Windmill, Blossom Street; the sound of a heavy, non-existent door opening set goosebumps rising in the Cock and Bottle, Skeldergate.

Eric Shaw, whose parents ran the Anglers Arms, Goodramgate, now the Snickleway Inn, recalled his meeting with the pub ghost in the book Public Houses, Private Lives.

"I woke up - and I looked down from my bed, and there was definitely a grey shape in that room, there was something in that bedroom," he said. "I'm convinced there was a ghost in the place."

Even modern bars are not safe. Ghosts were said to stalk the old Evening Press building on Coney Street. Part of that was converted into the City Screen and the Pitcher and Piano.

Have the ghouls gone away... or are they merely biding their time? Tonight might be the night we find out.

So best stick to a completely new building. Try the Postern Gate, the JD Wetherspoon gaff on Piccadilly; a quick call to the assistant manager established it does not have a ghost "as far as I know".

But don't assume that because a premises does not have a liquor licence, it doesn't have a ghost. Some phantoms delight in haunting cafs and tearooms.

An antiques shop and tearoom in Stonegate, one of York's most ghostly streets, is said to be home to the spirit of a little girl, who fell to her death from the top of the stairs while peeking at the guests arriving at her parents' party.

Neither will you fare much better on a trip to the theatre. No fewer than three different ghosts have been seen at the Theatre Royal in York.

And it is no use fleeing the city for the countryside. According to Rachel Lacy, York-based historical researcher for the GRFI, there are at least 40 spirits lurking in York's outlying villages.

She will be spending tonight on ghost watch at the York Dungeon. Her advice to those wishing to avoid things going bump in the night? Stick with like-minded people, and try to avoid mass hysteria.

So is there anywhere you can go in York and not disturb troubled spirits? It was a question I put to Andy Dextrous, street entertainer and, for the last six years, leader of The Ghost Hunt, a nightly tour of York.

Hallowe'en is his busiest night: in previous years he has led as many as 500 intrepid souls through the murky streets, and he always plans a little something extra for them.

Andy didn't believe in ghosts when he started the tours. Now he's not so sure. "It's quite amazing how many people who work in the shops and live in the houses featured on the walk come up to me and confidently tell me of strange things that have happened on their premises."

His nightly performance is as much comedy act as ghost walk so, one way or another, he leaves his audience in high spirits.

Andy struggled to think of any place in York free of ghosts to suit those of a nervous disposition. But he managed three.

"One would be the toilets in Bootham Bar," he suggested. "Even I like to hover four inches above the ground when I go in there."

Another was the Postern Gate, already confirmed as ghost-free. Andy's last suggestion came as a surprise, however: "No self-respecting Victorian ghost would wish to stay at the Royal York Hotel, now it has changed its name to Le Meridien."

By a spooky coincidence, bosses at that very hotel are making efforts to banish not Victorian, but Roman spectres who have been unwanted guests there since it was built in 1878.

Marco Frik, general manager of Le Meridien York, is busy hanging arrangements of St John's Wort and Rowan tied with a pink ribbon to ward off the ghouls.

If you still don't fancy your chances at Le Meridien, your ghost-free options are a new boozer or a public toilet.

Whatever you choose, have a nice night, and see you tomorrow.

Possibly...

Andy Dextrous's The Ghost Hunt leaves from Shambles every night except Christmas week at 7.30pm. Adults £3, children £2

Updated: 11:16 Thursday, October 31, 2002