The most haunted hotels in the UK

On Northern Ireland’s Antrim Coast, in the village of Ballygally, Ballygally Castle overlooks the still Irish Sea, and offers 54 different bedrooms, a cosy lounge and a restaurant with views of the castle garden. Built in 1625 by Lord James Shaw, Ballygally Castle was the Shaw’s family home, and was where he and his wife, Isabella Brisbane, had their baby girl. But as history goes, things did fare well for the lord’s wife. After falling out with James for not providing a male heir, Isabella was locked in the castle’s highest tower to starve. Mad with rage and determined to find her baby, Isabella tried to escape through the tower window, but fell to her death on a bed of rocks. Rumour has it that her ghost still haunts the castle, knocking door-to-door, searching for her lost baby and leaving the scent of vanilla behind. 

If Isabella doesn’t come to you, you can go to her. At the top of a spiral stone staircase, with the entryway marked by James and Isabella’s initials, the hotel’s ‘ghost room’ – the room where Isabella was locked in –  is open to explore for guests at any hour. Fun fact: One of the castle’s doors, and the area’s landscape in general, was featured in the Game of Thrones series.

Address: Coast Road, BT40 2QZ, Ballygalley

Expect to pay: Rooms from £108 per night

Closest transport: Ballygally Castle bus stop (bus 162) is a two-minute walk

Location: Bodmin, Cornwall, England

Before the 70 luxury rooms of this Cornwall hotel had king-sized beds and standalone baths, they were once 220 cold, empty cell blocks within what was once England’s first modern prison. With individual cells, blocks separated by gender, improved hygiene and even hot water, Bodmin Jail would ironically be considered the luxury prison of its time. It was built in 1779, partly by prisoners of the Napoleonic wars, and hosted 55 executions through its time as a jail. It was officially decommissioned in 1927, but the building itself lived on, becoming everything from a workshop to a sporting space and even a popular cabaret venue casino and nightclub, all in one. 

In 2021, after a multi-million dollar renovation, Bodmin opened as a luxury hotel, and it’s an impressive transformation. Prison cells look like not-so-humble cottage bedrooms with thick stone walls and warm lighting (it helps that the building was made out of 20,000 tonnes of granite). The prison wash room is transformed into a stocked fitness centre, and the jail chapel is now The Chapel restaurant, with a modern British menu, filling Sunday roasts and classic  afternoon tea – with light from the chapel’s gothic windows pouring in. Despite Bodmin Jail’s dark history, not many ghosts have been spotted, but tourists and history buffs still come to appreciate the building’s past, and lots of spook events take place here during Halloween. 

Time Out tip: There’s a connecting museum attached right next  

Expect to pay: Rooms from £268 per night. 

Nearest transport: Bodmin General rail station is a 20-minute walk. 

Location: Rye, East Sussex, England

Numerous spirits haunt the corridors of The Mermaid Inn, a proper 12th-century. Tudor-style inn used by smugglers, the Hawkhurst Gang, who’d take advantage of the building’s secret doors and passages. In room one, called The James, the ghost of ‘a lady in grey’ sits next to the fireplace, while another spirit floats through each room, and stands at the foot of the beds. There’s also the wife of a 16th-century smuggler, and a man who walks through walls and multiple guest accounts about hearing bottles smashing the Elizabethan Chamber room, and random cold spots and a rocking chair inexplicably rocking itself in the Kingsmill room. 

It’s quite a spooky affair, but worth the sightings for The Mermaid’s AA-Rosette restaurant headed by chef Drew King, who serves French and British-inspired plates, and for The Giant's Fireplace Bar, a cosy, old-English-style room with an enormous fireplace – but it won’t keep you warm from the cold spots and sounds of clinking glasses around it.

Time Out tip: Guided tours through the hotel are offered on the last Sunday of each month at 4pm and 5pm.

Address: Mermaid Street, TN31 7EY, Rye 

Expect to pay: Rooms from £129 per night

Closest transport: The Deals bus stop is a four-minute walk

Location: London, England

The most gory haunts are also the most expensive, and lie in London’s lavish Langham hotel, where Napoleon III roams the basement, and a German prince who jumped off the fourth floor floats through locked doors and corridors. 

The Langham opened in 1865, but it wasn’t until the BBC took over after WWII, with journalists staying in rooms, that reports of apparitions were recorded on the property. The worst of them all? Room 333, where a Victorian doctor stayed with his new wife after their wedding, and later that evening, killed her and himself. It’s said that his ghost appears every October, dressed in Victorian evening wear with missing lower legs, dead eyes and arms stretched at you as he floats towards you. There’s also the ghost of a shoeless butler, a footman in a powdered wig and light blue livery and a man with a squeamish, gaping face wound who all roam the halls. 

If you’re going to get your shit scared out of you, it might as well be in style. Rooms at The Langham go above and beyond with a light, bright airy setting and sleek, black accented bathrooms, and all of its dining concepts are run by two-Michelin-star chef Michel Roux. 

Address: 1C Portland Place, W1B 1JA, London 

Expect to pay: Rooms from £432 per night

Closest transport: Oxford Circus Underground station is a five-minute walk

Location: Bonnyrigg, Edinbugh, Scotland

Queen Victoria, Mary Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell were once visitors of Dalhousie Castle Hotel, a 12th-century build that lies just outside of Edinburgh. Their spirits haven’t been revisited Dalhousie, but guests might stumble upon 16-year-old Lady Catherine, instead, now known as the Grey Lady, who had an affair with a Ramsey laird (the family that owns the estate), and was locked in a turret to starve by the laird’s wife. Her ghost lingers in the turrets, the dungeon and sometimes even at your bedside. She hates bag pipes, too, and will force players off-key at the mere sound of them. Sir Alexander Ramsey, another Dalhousie laird, also floats around the grounds. His remains were found in Hermitage Castle, but he prefers haunting his old home, instead. Then there’s Petra, a poor pup who fell from the castle in the 1980s and trots around reception on early mornings.

Hauntings are an easy price to pay for these bedrooms, too. Each one has been renovated, and turned warm and romantic with Egyptian cotton bedding, plush pillows and a cosy ambiance that kind of makes the historic affairs in this castle quite understandable. 

Time out tip: There’s no spa or swimming pool, but Dalhousie does host some experiences that make the stay truly unique. Have a go at archery or ask about its falconry course, both on castle grounds. 

Address: Dalhousie Castle, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, EH19 3JB, Edinburgh

Expect to pay: Rooms from £248 per night 

Closest transport: Newtongrange rail station (Scotsrail) is a 35-minute walk or five-minute drive

Location: Ruthin, North Wales

Originally named Castell Coch yn yr Gwernfor (Welsh for ‘The Red Castle in the Great Marsh’), Ruthin Castle has 60 bedrooms and suites in five different categories, but its most haunted are rooms 116, 222 and 204, the Lily Langtry Suite. Book these and you’ll likely experience sudden cold spots and shivers, doors knocking with no one behind them and the dreaded feeling of being watched. Lady Grey is the hotel’s most frequented visitor. After she caught her husband, the castle’s second-in-command, Reginald de Grey, getting frisky with a local peasant girl, she killed the girl with an axe, was tried, found mad and guilty, and was executed and buried outside the castle walls. Lady Grey now roams corridors, battlements and banquet halls with an axe in hand. 

When the ghosts get your heart rate up, head to the hotel’s BAZAAR Spa to calm your nerves. There's  a steam room, a sauna, a mud room and outdoor hot tubs with views of the woodlands. 

Address: Castle Street, LL15 2NU, Ruthin

Expect to pay: Rooms from £89 per night. 

Closest transport: The Feathers Inn bus stop (T8 TrawsCymru) is an eight-minute walk. 

A fitting name for a 13th-century fortress that houses over 50 spirits, Chillingham Castle is famous for dozens of eerie sightings like the ‘boy in blue’, who appears as a flash of blue light and whose bones were found next to a blue cloth within the thick walls, and whose crying can be heard from castle’s Pink Room. There's also Lady Mary Berkley, who makes herself known by the freezing drop in temperature accompanied by the smell of roses, and the ghost of an eight-year-old girl in the castle’s chapel. Her remains were found, but the body was never consecrated as the original chapel was on the opposite side of the castle before her death. 

Aside from the many hauntings, Chillingham Castle also offers many different accommodations. Guests can stay in the main building’s state rooms, book the gamekeeper’s cottage for four, sleep in the two-bedroom home that makes up the east lodge and more. Grounds include an ornate Italian garden, a tearoom (which closes right after Halloween), and even scheduled ghost hunts. Amp up the spook by peeking around the castle’s dungeon and torture chamber, too. 

Time Out tip: Chillingham Castle’s main area and tea room closes for winter right after Halloween, so book ahead.

Address: Chillingham, NE66 5NJ, Alnwick

Expect to pay: Prices vary per accommodation. Check the castle’s official website and Booking.com for more

Closest transport: Wooler bus station is 14-minute drive, or a 26-minute bus ride from the Chillingham Old post office, a 10-minute walk from the castle

Location: York, Yorkshire, England

Ghosts of Roman soldiers march in the cellars of The Golden Fleece, a York-based inn that dates back to 1503, with even older cellars that once stored dead bodies of criminals until relatives came to collect them. There’s also a Canadian WWII soldier who fell to his death from an upper window; One Eyed Jack, a red coat who roams the bottom bar with pistol in hand, with an old and grumpy bar companion; and a Victorian boy who was trampled by horses. But the most sighted is Lady Alice Peckett, the wife of the hotel owner and once-York mayor, John Peckett, who’s often seen wandering the corridors, up and down stair steps and moving furniture in the late-night hours. 

There are only four rooms at The Golden Fleece, each decorated Victorian-style, with walls full of portraits with eyes that follow. The inn is right by The Shambles, too, one of the city’s oldest medieval rows lined with shops. There’s free breakfast exclusively for hotel guests, and Monday-night open mic nights for pub dwellers. 

Address: 16 Pavement, YO1 9UP, York 

Expect to pay: Rooms from £185 per night

Closest transport: York rail station is a 17-minute walk

Location: Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

Reports of floating candles and flying books off library shelves are not uncommon at Ettington Park Hotel, a lavish resort in Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. This neo-gothic mansion is made from six different types of stone, and is a four-star and forty-acre estate with a swimming pool, a spa, two restaurants, lawn games and a whole lotta paranormal

There’s Lady Emma, or the ‘Lady in White’ who roams corridors and walks through walls; the Victorian woman at the conservatory entrance; a man and his pet dog who enters and quickly vanishes in the library; and that famous floating candle. Hotel staff first saw the mysterious flame on Christmas Eve – making for an interesting haunted stay even outside of Halloween season. The estate, itself, holds Norman ruins, a pet cemetery, and is said to be on land that was once a Roman villa, making these acres an active site for ghostly interactions. 

Address: CV37 8BU, Stratford-upon-Avon 

Expect to pay: Rooms from £165 per night

Closest transport: Crimscote Turn bus stop is an eight-minute walk