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Anne Griffith

The Great Hall of Burton Agnes Hall contains the skull of Anne Griffith who died nearly 300 years ago. The property was owned at that time by Anne and her two sisters and they spent lavishly on improvements to the buildings and grounds. Anne, the youngest of the three, was obsessed by the work almost to the exception ol anything else.

One day, after visiting friends, she was left for dead after being attacked and robbed. Found when barely still alive, she was taken tc Burton Agnes Hall where she died a few days later but not before begging her sisters to preserve her head in the walls of the house She told her sisters that should they not grant this, her final wish, she would do all she could to escape from her grave and return to the house. Her sisters told her that they would carry out her request but after she died, they decided that it was too gruesome and probablj only the result of her failing mind, and so her complete body was placed in the family vault.

A few days later the sisters heard loud, crashing noises for which they could find no explanation and then, one night, the whole household awoke to the sound of doors being slammed shut throughoul the building. Night after night groans echoed through the corridors and at last the sisters, taking the advice of their vicar, decided tc keep the promise they had made to their sister.

Anne's corpse was disinterred and found to be in perfect condition except for the heac which had been reduced to a skull. The skull was taken into tht house and no further disturbances occurred. Some years later, however, a servant threw the skull onto a passing cart as a prank, but the horse stopped and stood sweating in terror. It was only when the skull was returned to the house that the cart driver managed to ge the horse to move on.

Over time, different owners of the house buried the skull in the garden but thereafter had so much bad luck that they brought it back in. The skull of Anne Griffith is now built in behind a carved screen in the Great Hall, and a portrait of her hangs on the staircase looking down on the house she loved so much. Aberdeen, Scotland | Arbroath, Scotland | Basildon, Essex | Blairgowrie | Cerro del vale | Edinburgh | Fife, Scotland | Ghost in Dumfries | Ghost in Perhshire | Harrises | Hereford, England | Hertfordshire, England | Killiecrankie, Scotland | Littlecote, Wiltshire | London, England | South Lanarkshire | York |