Ghost Tales by the Fireside - True Ghost Stories Podcast

Out on the lonely marshes near Faversham, Kent, stands the Shipwrights Arms — an isolated old pub with a ghost story that has lingered for generations.

Local tradition tells of a sailor whose ship foundered in the Swale on a bitter winter night.

Somehow he survived the wreck and struggled across the freezing mudflats towards the lights of the pub. He reached the door and knocked... but nobody let him in.

By morning, he was dead on the doorstep.
And according to the old story, he never really left.

Landlords, landladies and customers have reportedly encountered a thickset, bearded sailor wearing a heavy reefer jacket and peaked cap. Sometimes his arrival is announced only by a sudden chill — and the unmistakable smell of rum, tar and tobacco.

This is the strange story of the ghost of the Shipwrights Arms near Faversham.

Tintagel Castle rises above the Cornish coast, forever connected with King Arthur, Merlin and one of Britain’s greatest legends. But beyond the familiar Arthurian stories, Tintagel has acquired ghost stories and strange traditions of its own.

Medieval writers claimed this was the place where Arthur was conceived, while centuries later the great sea cave beneath the cliffs became known as Merlin’s Cave — and eventually gained a tradition that Merlin’s spirit remained within its darkness.

Then there is the mysterious ghostly horseman reportedly seen among Tintagel’s ruins. The surviving account gives frustratingly little detail about the encounter, except for the identity the witness gave the rider: King Arthur.

And in 1998, archaeology added another extraordinary chapter when a piece of sixth-century slate bearing the name Artognou was discovered at Tintagel. It wasn't evidence for Arthur, but it revealed something almost as intriguing: during the period in which a historical Arthur might have lived, Tintagel really was occupied by powerful people whose identities have been lost.

In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, we travel to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall to explore the real history behind the ruins, the legend of Arthur’s conception, Merlin’s Cave, the Artognou Stone and the ghost stories that have grown around one of Britain’s most mysterious landscapes.

On the ancient downs of Dorset, near Sixpenny Handley, a series of prehistoric burial mounds have gathered some extraordinary stories.
Old local folklore claimed that strange music could sometimes be heard coming from beneath the barrows. Another story tells of a clergyman who rested upon one of the mounds and saw a crowd of little people, dressed in leather jerkins, dancing around him.

But Bottlebush Down is best known for something even stranger.

During the winter of 1927 or 1928, Dr R. C. C. Clay was driving home through the Dorset countryside when he noticed a horseman galloping across the downs beside his car. The rider was bare-legged, dressed in a long loose garment and appeared to be riding without bridle or stirrups. He waved a strange object above his head as he kept pace with Clay's car.

Then horse and rider vanished.

When Clay returned the following day, he discovered an ancient round barrow at the place where the apparition had disappeared.

Clay was not the only person said to have encountered the rider. Two women returning from a dance reportedly found themselves followed by a mysterious horseman, while an old shepherd apparently knew him simply as "the man on the horse that comes out of the opening in the pine wood."

In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside: Dark Folklore, we travel to Bottlebush Down to explore its ancient barrows, fairy traditions, dancing little people and one of Britain's most remarkable stories of a possible prehistoric ghost.

Could an image from thousands of years ago still be riding across the Dorset downs?

Evesham may be famous for its abbey and the bloody Battle of Evesham, but some of the town's strangest stories are found behind closed doors.

In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, we explore the ghosts and hauntings of Evesham and the surrounding Vale. There is a mysterious little boy sitting beside a fireplace who nobody else remembers seeing, a shadowy monk that walks straight through a wall, unexplained footsteps heard in an apparently empty building, and a presence in a pub cellar that seems to follow a passage that no longer exists.

We also visit the Spirit House and its much darker paranormal reputation, look at strange activity associated with Evesham's old Quaker prison, and venture beyond the town into the older folklore of the Vale, where phantom coaches, headless figures and other strange traditions have survived.

Some of these stories are centuries old. Others were experienced by people in comparatively recent times.

And perhaps that is what makes Evesham so interesting.

The town has changed.

Its ghosts apparently haven't.

Ghost Tales by the Fireside explores Britain's haunted places through true ghost stories, history, folklore and local legend.

On the windswept Kent coast, the twin towers of Reculver stand above the remains of a place far older than the ruined church itself.

Beneath them once stood Regulbium, a Roman fort, and with it survives a disturbing piece of folklore.

An old story claims that when the Romans built the fort, a baby was buried beneath its foundations as a sacrifice to protect the walls.
Then archaeologists began digging.
Within the Roman site, the remains of infants were discovered.

The archaeology does not prove that a sacrifice ever took place, but at Reculver the discovery became entwined with another story that had long haunted the ruins. On stormy nights, when the wind comes in from the sea, people have reported hearing the unmistakable sound of a baby crying.

And the child is not the only presence associated with Reculver.

Two mysterious hooded figures have reportedly been seen moving silently amongst the ruins, resembling monks from the religious community that once occupied the site. Those who have attempted to approach them say the figures simply disappear.

In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside: Dark Folklore, we travel to Reculver Towers to uncover a story where Roman Britain, archaeology, coastal folklore and centuries of ghost stories occupy the same lonely patch of ground.

A short atmospheric tale of haunted Kent, British folklore, Roman ghosts and the strange history of Reculver Towers.

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