Haunted Locations York

York has a lot of ghosts. In 2002, the International Ghost Research Foundation said it was the most haunted city in Europe, with 504 hauntings within the confines of the ancient walls. Founded by the Romans in 71AD, the city’s violent and volatile history – including Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest and the Civil War – makes its ghostly legacy easy to understand.

The walled city’s bloodthirsty history has produced easily enough mayhem to leave paranormal traces, if such things exist. Even sceptical tourists have admitted goosebumps on the sites of such medieval practices as execution by crushing to death, an exercise involving increasingly heavy stone slabs in which York specialised.