RACHEL LACY visits her favourite, little-known, haunts for this Hallowe'en good ghost guide

YORK is reputed to be the most haunted city in England, but this is a recent phenomenon. The half dozen or so ghosts that were well documented in the city 30 years ago have increased to more than 100 - coinciding with the growth of the tourism industry. Spooky...

York Dungeon and the Ghost Research Foundation International have certainly done their bit to inspire this spiralling spectre count with their monthly seance nights. I was hooked after my first seance.

After becoming a member of the foundation, I started to investigate the darker side of York's tourism industry.

Looking for documented ghosts in an ever-changing city like York isn't always easy, because buildings and streets alter, and books on the subject don't always agree on the details. With so many ghosts to choose from, I have decided to stay away from the well-documented ones.

Armed with a notebook and a large amount of enthusiasm, I took a friend on a late-night, impromptu, ghost walk of York, the untraditional starting point of which is the kebab wagon on High Ousegate.

The first stop was in Spurriergate. According to one source a ghost lodges in the Judges House which once stood here; another places a spirit in Judges Court, off Coney Street - could they be one and the same?

The story behind the Judges House features a barrister, who stayed there in the 19th century. At two o'clock one morning he heard footsteps in his room. They headed for the door, followed by a voice twice calling "Henry". The footsteps then went down the stairs, where a murmur of voices was heard, a scuffle and a shriek.

The footsteps returned, stumbling up the stairs and into the room, where another loud thud was heard and then silence.

The barrister sat terrified until the maid came to the room next morning. She told him of a judge that stayed in the room 150 years previously. He awoke one morning to find his nephew dead from a knife wound in the adjoining room: he was called Henry.

The judge investigated the death himself and ruled that it was suicide. But could there have been foul play and a guilty conscience kept a soul from resting in peace? Who knows?

The ghost of the Judges Court made himself known in the 18th century, when heavy, dragging footsteps accompanied by a tinkling sound were heard. He remained active for the next couple of centuries, and even obligingly appeared in front of a group of tourists.

Renovations of the building revealed a covered well, in the bottom of which was a skeleton of a large man wearing riding boots which had a broken spur.

Between the two locations was the Black Swan coaching house, roughly where Boots the chemist now stands, the destination point of Coachman Tom one foggy night.

Tom's former girlfriend, Nance, had ran away with a highwayman several years before, by whom she had a child before discovering he was married.

Tom found Nance and her baby by the side of the road one night and, although he got them to a York tavern, it was too late - they both died.

She had vowed that if Tom ever needed her she would be there to help him. When Tom was fetching some travellers to the Black Swan from Durham one misty night, Nance's ghost sat with him to guide the horses through the dangerous drive.

A true Yorkshirewoman, she got the coach to the inn at 7.55pm, earning Tom a promised extra four guineas for arriving before 8pm, proving that Yorkshire folk will even come back from the grave if there's money to be made.

At the end of Coney Street we crossed to Stonegate, which has several spooky stories in its ancient buildings. The Punch Bowl and Ye Olde Starre Inn notch up at least seven separate hauntings between them, and as well as the pubs there is an upstairs room haunted by a man who used to rap on the wall just after the Minster bells sounded midnight, carrying on after death a habit from life.

He thought it would frighten away would-be robbers whom he feared would steal the money hidden under his pillow. He couldn't look for them hiding because he was bedridden.

One of York's saddest ghosts must be 41 Stonegate, now a tearoom and gift shop.

The six-year-old daughter of the doctor who used to live there was hanging over a banister listening to a party below when she slipped and fell four floors from attic to cellar.

Her footsteps still echo up the stairs, and she has been seen sitting on the shop counter on at least one occasion.

York Minster, The Treasurer's House and St William's College are some of the most well-known ghost stories in York, especially in the case of the lost Roman legion.

Crossing to Bedern, the backstreets which are home to the Children of Bedern make up my least-favourite haunted area in York.

The master of York Industrial Ragged School used to round-up waifs and strays then put them out to work, keeping their wages himself.

When the children died of exposure and starvation, he locked their bodies in a cupboard. When the stench became unbearable he buried them. But as the ground grew harder in winter this became impossible and the corpses piled up.

Eventually, he became convinced that the children in the cupboard were screaming, and as he descended into madness he took a knife and butchered the children that were still alive.

He was found next morning among the bodies, from where he was taken to York Asylum. The children can still be heard playing at times but, if you stop and listen, the joyful shouts turn to screams...

Although the slum area is long gone, I still shudder as I walk past the area.

And that's only a fraction of York's other-worldly populace which frequent the churches, shops, streets, hotels, pubs, ginnels and, it seems, every other nook and cranny of the city.

So next time you are walking through town, down a dark alley, or having a quiet pint in the pub remember, you may not be alone...

If you have information on hauntings in York send details to Rachel Lacy, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN or email whatson@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 12:08 Wednesday, October 31, 2001