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Oakley Green

An old 16th century farmhouse here is only haunted when there are children in the house. The spirit is that of an Elizabethan nurse, devoted to the young. Her presence is felt when children are about and she keeps them free from cold by shutting all the windows.

New Lodge, at Braywoodside, is haunted by the ghost of an elderly man, thought to be the building’s Victorian builder, Baron Van de Weyer. In the drive outside has been seen a phantom coach drawn by white horses.

Old Windsor

At Rosemary Cottage, an innkeeper cut his wife’s throat and afterwards the cottage became haunted and footsteps were heard. Dogs would not go into the cottage until the priest came and exorcised the place.

An old lodge on Priest Hill was supposed to be haunted by a previous owner who had drowned himself in the nearby Thames. He had weighed his body down with a lawnmower. He would walk up the stairs and open one of the bedroom doors, making an awful lot of noise, almost every night. A young girl, supposedly called Sally, also used to arrive amongst a sweet perfume and sit on the end of one of the beds. Poltergeist activity included bedclothes being torn from the beds, objects being thrown and strange lights dancing across the walls (sometimes only visible to children). Mysterious footprints became burnt into a new linoleum floor and could never be removed.

Bennet House was haunted in the mid-1950s, mostly in the eastern part of the house. Particularly noticeable were numerous sorrowful noises, sometimes very loud. Taps turned on and windows opened all of their own accord; bedclothes were tugged at and strange footsteps were heard in the bare passages on the ground floor. One normally passive dog spent a restless night howling in the pantry. The phenomena all stopped after a short exorcism.

George’s IV’s mistress, Perdita Robinson, lived at Englefield Cottage with her daughter, Maria. The latter died, aged eighteen, in 1818 and her unhappy spirit is said to walk in the parish churchyard, where she is buried, at dawn and at dusk. Fear overcame one observer who saw her leaning against the graveyard wall wearing a large back hat; but, as he approached, she disappeared.