Old buildings often have strong personalities, as our selection of ghost stories from National Trust houses, gardens and sites will testify.

Siân Evans offers teasers from 'Ghosts' (National Trust Books) to whet your appetite.

Avebury in Wiltshire

Looming across the landscape of this World Heritage Site are a number of stone circles, which have been in place for up to 5,000 years, and a surviving avenue of standing stones which strike awe into the visitor.

From Avebury comes a strange tale of a woman who claimed to see the site as it had been decades before.

One October evening during the First World War, a rector’s daughter and stalwart of the Land Army named Edith Olivier drove into Avebury for the first time.

She wasn’t too sure of the route, but set out from Beckhampton and was charmed by the misty avenue of looming megaliths along her route from the west.

On arriving in the village, she noticed a crowd of villagers attending a faintly bucolic-looking fair. Nine years were to pass before she discovered not only had the massive avenue disappeared by 1800, but also that no fair had been held in the village since 1850.

Corfe Castle in Dorset

Corfe Castle is a majestic, brooding ruin, towering over Corfe Castle village.

During the Civil War Corfe belonged to the Bankes family, who were Royalists, and Dame Mary Bankes organised the defence of the castle in 1643 and 1645 against strenuous sieges mounted by Cromwell’s Roundheads.

But an act of treachery betrayed the family – the castle was overrun, and as a punishment it was subsequently blown up by engineers from the Parliamentarian side.

The sound of a child weeping can occasionally be heard nearby, and it is believed that the headless body of a woman in white stalks the battlements or walls of the ruin. She is thought to be the person who betrayed the besieged Royalists, bringing about the ruin of both the family and their formidable fortress.

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Dunster Castle in Somerset

Dunster Castle dates from Norman times and, like many very ancient sites, has the reputation of being the haunt of many ghosts.

The shop is housed in part of the 17th-century stable block, and this area seems especially prone to supernatural happenings.

Staff report occasional sightings of a man dressed in green who passes the door of the shop and proceeds down the stable block blithely ignoring their questions, only to disappear without trace.

There are accounts of a mysterious green light that floats from the front door to the far end of the stable block, and staff are aware of a presence in the stock room opposite the shop – the shop manager has always felt most uncomfortable when working in there.

Visitors often comment on a sense of menace at this end of the building. On five separate occasions, visitors who have felt uneasy have specifically asked if anyone had been murdered here, and one lady was adamant that two people had been murdered in the stables.

In the shop itself there are frequent, inexplicable happenings. Stock items which have been perfectly secure one minute suddenly fall over, especially displays of books at the far end of the shop.

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Fleece Inn in Worcestershire

Originally a family home belonging to local farmers and dating back to the Middle Ages, The Fleece Inn at Bretforton retains a very rustic, domestic atmosphere.

Lola Taplin, the granddaughter of the first publican-owner, Harry Byrd, who became the landlord in 1848, still seems to feel very much at home there.

She died in 1977, but continued to remind guests that it was very much her home, and that they should treat it as such.

Former licensee Peter Clark has related tales of apparitions, mysterious noises and a palpable presence from his staff and customers.

Lola was always particularly averse to customers eating in the pub, and strange things have happened to people’s pack lunches as a result. One unfortunate saw his sandwiches lifted into the air and dashed to the floor. ‘I’d only had the one,’ he said ruefully.

Since Lola’s death, chairs have been seen to be rocking by themselves, sometimes with the illusion of an elderly lady sitting in them, and clocks have stopped inexplicably at 3pm.

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Ham House in Surrey

Set on a peaceful, lush bank of the River Thames, Ham House near Richmond is thought to be one of the National Trust’s most prolifically haunted locations.

A recent investigation at the house, conducted overnight by the Ghost Club, concluded that there could be as many as 15 phantoms in residence, including a number of dogs.

Ham House was the life’s work of the tenacious and strong-willed Duchess of Lauderdale (1626-98). By becoming a friend to both Cromwell – openly – and to Charles II (secretly), she schemed and plotted to maintain her power base and was even ruthless enough to sue her own family if they crossed her.

She ended her days suffering from gout, barely able to move from room to room and died in 1698, an embittered woman. It is her unquiet spirit which some believe roams the house to this day.

The ground-floor room to which she retreated is known as the Duchess’s Bedchamber.

Highly ornate in decoration and strangely oppressive in atmosphere, the room emits sounds of footsteps and wafts of rose scent at all hours of the day and night.

Rose was popular with the Stuart court, both as an effective perfume for the person, and to camouflage less pleasant odours.

An exquisite portrait, by Sir Peter Lely, of the Duchess as a young woman hangs over the mantelpiece – but it is the freestanding looking glass to one side which seems to provoke the most shudders.

Visitors record a sensation of dread as they peer at the slightly clouded surface, as though they might see in the reflection a face not their own, or catch a glimpse of some malevolent-looking figure standing directly behind them.

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Lyveden New Bield in Northamptonshire

An incomplete Elizabethan house and moated garden in a very isolated part of Northamptonshire, Lyveden New Bield is described even by the staff who work there as ‘profoundly spooky’.

The building is a melancholy relic, an indirect victim of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It was created in 1595 by Sir Thomas Tresham, who wanted to build a remarkable house to symbolise his Catholic faith. The ‘footprint’ of the building is in the shape of the Cross.

Ten years later, with the family implicated in the ill-fated plot to blow up King James I and parliament and in serious debt, Thomas Tresham died, and all work stopped abruptly.

Two years ago, the current Property Manager clearly saw a long-faced, bearded man standing at one bay of the upper-storey windows. Yet there are no floors inside the shell of Lyveden, so whom – or what – did he see?

Intriguingly, a local printer also reported seeing a figure of a similar description at one of the bay windows, 35 feet off the ground. Locals are adamant that it would be impossible for anyone to be suspended at that height or to climb up inside the building, so did they in fact see the shadow of Sir Thomas Tresham, worrying over his builders’ lack of progress?

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Powis Castle in Powys

It would be surprising if a place as ancient as Powis Castle did not harbour some ghost stories.

The Dukes Room is located on the cross gallery at the end of the Long Gallery and this area is one of the most haunted in the castle.

There have been numerous sightings by staff of fleeting figures in this part of the castle.

Members of the public have also found the area to be strangely crowded – two of them made enquiries (separately, but on the same day) after the lady in black seen sitting in a chair beside the fireplace.

Similarly, the house steward spotted a lady standing by the door to the Dukes Room one day, and thought she had imagined it, but later that same day a visitor reported having felt the presence of a woman in the exact same spot.

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Souter Lighthouse in Tyne and Wear

On a windswept stretch of the north-east coast stands Souter Lighthouse, boldly painted in red and white hoops.

A new waitress was surprised to spot at the far end of the kitchen corridor a man in an old-fashioned lighthouse keeper’s uniform, who promptly disappeared.

Around the time of the ‘sighting’, a number of members of staff commented on the strong odour of burning tobacco in the same stretch of the kitchen corridor, and also in the area around the recreated Keeper’s Cottage.

Later the same day, Souter was visited by a gentleman whose grandfather had lived at the lighthouse before the war … and who smoked strong tobacco.

This ex-resident was not a lighthouse keeper, in fact, but a winding engineman at the local coal mine. His company had leased at least two of the lighthouse cottages.

Over a year later, the grandson paid another visit to Souter. He was taken into a small staff room near the tea-room, and sat down at the round table in the middle of the room, facing the window to the north.

When he pulled out a sheaf of old family photographs, one black-and-white print showed the heavy-smoking former resident, sitting, facing north, at a round table in the middle of the room … the same pose in the same room, only about 60 years later.

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'Ghosts' By Siân Evans

National Trust Books
£14.99, April 2006, ISBN: 1 9054 0037 3

© National Trust

'Ghosts' features 72 of the National Trust's properties with weird and unnerving stories to tell, or where staff or visitors have experienced odd events.

• Order your copy from our online bookshop today.