With Halloween tomorrow, you might be gearing up for a horror-movie marathon, a night of trick-or-treating, or even a visit to a local scare attraction.
One thing you might not be prepared for is catching a glimpse of a ghostly figure when navigating one of the UK’s spookiest roads.
Below, the team at Select Car Leasing have listed the most haunted roads in the UK where spectral beings have supposedly been sighted:
1. A616: Stocksbridge Bypass, near Sheffield, South Yorks
Opened in May 1988, the bypass links the M1 motorway to the east with the Woodhead Pass to the west. It’s a notorious accident black spot, and many claim it’s a spooky hot-spot, too.
During the road’s construction, two security guards claim to have spotted a group of ethereal children dancing around an electricity pylon. When they got out of their vehicle, they found the ‘children’ had vanished and there were no footprints.
2. A149 Kings Lynn, Norfolk
There’s a ghostly black dog that is said to roam the coastline and countryside of East Anglia. Locals call it ‘Black Shuck’, ‘Old Shock’, or simply ‘Shuck’, and sightings are still prevalent to this day. The dog is said to have black shaggy fur, with fiery eyes and of immense size, who visits churchyards at midnight.
In 2000, college lecturer Simon Corbin caught a sighting of the creature. When living in King’s Lynn and working in Hunstanton, Simon was driving on the A149 on a bright summer’s day when he saw a large black dog race across the carriageway. In true ghostly fashion, the creature appeared from (and vanished into) thin air.
3. A15 near Ruskington, Lincolnshire
Dubbed the ‘Ruskington Horror’, the turn-off for Ruskington on the A15 in Lincolnshire has had its fair share of ghostly sightings.
Dr Rob Gandy, a health statistician and avid chronicler of road ghost stories, says there are a number of well documented and chilling events witnessed in the area. One person described a face suddenly appearing from around the front driver’s side pillar of his car’s windscreen with its left hand up. The figure had a pitted face and dark hair.
Other drivers have reported seeing a white shape that turns into a man who has his arm raised as if to warn drivers about something. After noticing the figure, it fades away into a mist.
4. B3212, Dartmoor
The legend of the ‘Hairy Hands’ is set near Postbridge, Dartmoor, on the B3212. According to the legend, the ‘Hairy Hands’ are a pair of disembodied hands that appear suddenly, grabbing at the steering wheel of a moving car or the handlebars of a motorcycle, which then force the vehicles off the road.
Author Michael Williams describes in his book Supernatural Dartmoor how one witness, a journalist called Rufus Endle, explained how ‘a pair of hands gripped the driving wheel and I had to fight for control’. The hands disappeared as quickly as they’d materialised, and a crash was narrowly avoided.
5. A229, Kent
The A229 at Blue Bell Hill has reportedly seen a whopping 50 reported supernatural sightings over the last few decades.
Most of the sightings revolve around an apparent spectral bride seen waiting, mournfully, by the side of the road. Many believe the ghost is the spirit of 22-year-old Suzanne Browne, who was tragically killed at the spot along with two friends in an accident in 1965 on the eve of her wedding.
Some motorists claim to have ‘hit’ this bride with their car, only to find zero evidence that anyone had even been there.
6. B1249, East Riding of Yorkshire
Werewolves aren’t just the stuff of horror movies, they’re real to those who’ve spotted them in Yorkshire since the 1960s.
One recent case came in August 2016 when motorist Jemma Waller, 24, described seeing a monster that looked ‘like a big dog, probably bigger than my car, but it had a human face’ near the village of Halsham.
7. A666, the Devil’s Highway, Greater Manchester
With its unique numbering structure and high accident rate, it’s no surprise that the A666 that runs from the outskirts of Manchester north to Blackburn, Lancashire, is known as the ‘Devil’s Highway’.
Numerous supernatural sightings there also add to the road’s reputation. One report from 2015 describes the moment a motorist travelling on a deserted road witnesses a mysterious, white-clad creature pursing their vehicle.
8. Scotter Road, Lincolnshire
The ‘Scotter Road Spectre’ is a 12-foot monk who is reported to have roamed the stretch between the viaduct and the junction with West Common Lane in Scunthorpe.
The ghost is said to have appeared walking alongside the road, before suddenly disappearing. Clearly visible in the street light, it was assumed that whoever or whatever it was must have been on stilts because it was so tall.
9. M6 between Crewe and Knutsford, Cheshire
Many believe that the busy M6 is haunted by spectral lorries and vanishing hitch-hikers, with an area between Crewe and Knutsford in Cheshire being particularly sinister.
In 2017, one eyewitness described almost ‘hitting’ a figure standing in the road – before it disappeared into thin air. They said: “To me, it looked like the figure had run across the lanes and was now waiting for me to see them, but as I got closer, the figure… looked almost translucent, and then the figure just vanished.”
10. A3, Surrey
In the evening of 11th December 2002, Surrey Police received reports of a car swerving off the road and down a verge on the A3 near Burpham, to the east of Guildford. Officers arrived and, the next day, located a Vauxhall Astra as well as a decomposing body.
However, the body had been there for weeks, even months, not a matter of hours. The victim had also been a wanted man, a suspect in a robbery, who had vanished without trace in June of that year. So who, or what, had the eyewitnesses really seen?
Imagery by
Blake Lisk
Chmyphotography
Eugene Triguba
Pat Whelan
Annie Spratt
