Halloween - Best Ghost Walks and Haunted Places in the UK

Oxford Castle is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country. Full of tales of violence, executions, great escapes, betrayals and even romance, it served as a prison between 1071 and 1996.

Restoration to make the building safe for visitors has revealed secrets hidden away for more than 1000 years. The Saxon, St. George's Tower recently open for the first time in its history. There's a creepy 18th-century Debtors’ Tower and a 900 year old underground Crypt. There's also a castle curse, dating from the Black Assize of 1577, when hundreds of people died within weeks. The scene of a 9-day ghost fest in October, the Castle also hosts regular fright nights.

York claims to be Europe's most haunted city, with hauntings going all the way back to the ghostly Roman legions who walk the cellars of the Treasurer's House. Creepy.

With so many layers of culture and civilization - Britons, Celts, Romans, Vikings, battling Lancasters and Yorks, not to mention a famous massacre, its no surprise that plenty of ghosts hang around York.

Regular ghost walks meet at 7:30 every night at the West Door of York Minster and in The Shambles.

• York Ghost Trail Walks
• York Shambles Ghost Walks

Chester packs 2,000 years of history into a very compact, walled city with narrow streets and alleys, ancient crypts and cellars. Ghost hunters have been busy here and claim to have documented hauntings, spirits, spooks and poltergeists from almost every century across the entire city - more ghosts per street than anywhere in the UK. Paranormal researcher Dave Sadler of Parascience says, "My belief is that Chester, for its size, has the most haunted activity in the country."

Well!

Night-time ghost tours leave from the Tourist Information Center, near the town hall, every Saturday night at 7:30p.m., year round, as well as Thursdays and Fridays from June through October.

You'd expect Scotland's capital city to have ghosts. After all, they've got a queen who lost her head. One of the creepiest places in Edinburgh is its underground district, Mary King's Close. The "close" was, originally, a series of small, very narrow streets lined with houses reaching up to seven stories. In the late 18th century, the city council decided to build the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers) right on top of the site. Some of the buildings were knocked down but the lower stories of many of them were kept as foundations for the new building. These dark, underground dwellings, with their ancient secrets can be visited on pre-booked tours.
Edinburgh Ghost and Gore Walking Tour - Another tour to Buy Direct

Derby is another small UK city that lays claim to being the most haunted with everything from headless ghosts to floating trousers. The jail, now a museum, is owned by a paranormal investigator who claims it is the "dead centre of England." The BBC has also reported claims that the condemned cell of the jail is its most haunted hot spot. Here's a quick rundown of its gruesome credentials:

• The last man hung, drawn and quartered (remember the end of "Braveheart"?) met his end in Derby.
• The last "pressing to death" sentence was carried out here in the 17th century.
• A peer of the realm - apparently the only one to be hanged for murder - was dispatched by the "new drop" style of gallows, instead of being hanged from the back of a cart.

Lancaster Castle, on a hilltop in the city center, is a group of buildings dating from the 12th century. It is still in use as a Crown Court and a prison so only parts of it can be visited, and then only by guided tour. The castle's spookiness rating comes from the famous case of the Pendle Witches that took place in 1612. King James I was a believer in witches and in his reign an act was passed imposing the death penalty "for making a covenant with an evil spirit, using a corpse for magic, hurting life or limb, procuring love, or injuring cattle by means of charms". At a three day "assize" in Lancaster, 2 men and 8 women were convicted of witchcraft and subsequently hanged on the moors.