Does your area have a Grey Lady myth?

[QuestionableMouse]

Working on my thesis which is folklore based and keep seeing various versions of the Grey Lady myth pop up.

Does your area have one, and if so, what is it? 😁

We have a White Lady in the suburbs of Edinburgh!

Acklam Hall, then St George's School, in Middlesbrough definitely had a rumour of a Grey Lady, believed to be the ghost of Charlotte Hustler. The Hustler family owned much of the land of Middlesbrough and our current house was on a parcel of land owned by that family.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/10-terrifying-legends-said-haunt-18317331.amp

The Hall has been restored in recent years and is now a wedding venue/restaurant.

I was just about to post Acklam Hall too; I went to collage there and she is supposed to haunt the pond outside.

The Grey Lady lived in the toilets of my primary school. Apparently. Scared the shite out of me.

@Rapidash

There's a white womans lane near me

www.eadt.co.uk/news/weird-suffolk-eyke-lane-ghost-witch-2544416

There's a White Woman Lane in Norwich as well, complete with a school of that name too.

St Audrie's Park in Somerset, was a manor house, then a school, then a Buddhist retreat, now a wedding venue. Has a Grey Lady. From what I remember, she found out her husband had died (not sure which war), and jumped off the tower.

Used to freak us out going down the tower stairs during a fire alarm!

Yes! And like many other Grey Lady tales, she haunts the Theatre Royal (Bath).

www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMWKPN_The_Butterfly_Grey_Lady_and_other_Ghosts_The_Theatre_Royal_Bath_Somerset

www.edp24.co.uk/news/weird-norfolk-white-woman-lane-haunted-ghost-1542134

Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon has one.
We once tried to stay the night there as kids 😱

And interestingly, there is also supposed to be a Grey Lady in the Theater Royal in Brighton, where I grew up (plus the York Theatre Royal), and a Grey Lady on the wards of the old Brighton General hospital (originally the Brighton workhouse).

White lady where I grew up. Think there's 1 every town 😂

www.samlesburyhall.co.uk/about/ghosts

If I remember correctly (probably 30 years since I last visited), the Grey Lady that supposedly haunts Durham Castle appears from her shins upwards. Apparently the floors have been raised but she still walks on the original floors!

I worked in a building that used to be a former workhouse. Rumour have it that the rear stairs* had a nurse in an old fashioned workhouse era nurses dress who would patrol them at night making sure that everyone was silent in the building. A colleague of mine who was totally non-woo and didn't believe in the supernatural definitely believed that the nurse was real.

*in this particular workhouse the front stairs would have been reserved for the master and nurses. The people of the workhouse were expected to use the rear stairs.

Yep, the notorious Lady of the Rock. On the mountain where my hometown village is based there were jagged rocks all over the place but one in particular jutted out and made a sort of cliff. The story is that there was a well to do woman who went looking for some geezer in the middle of a storm and the dark, she was on a horse and it got spooked by the storm and yeeted her arse of the cliff. Used effectively to scare kids for generations

The story that I know of a grey lady is that a man abandoned his girlfriend to go off to Australia, leaving her pregnant. She threw herself off an old bridge in my local village and drowned. Years, later when he came back a rich man in a fine carriage, he got to the river's ford/crossing point, which was in flood. It was misty and out of the gloom a lady appeared and said she would show him a safe way across the flooded stream. She led him into the swirling waters where he drowned... It had been the ghost of his abandoned love. For ever after she would walk the burn between the two bridges and many people saw her.... She became known as the Grey Lady of Old Bleachy....

We have the black eyed children instead, I'll happily swap for your Grey Lady.

I've not heard of it. I don't believe in ghosts, but am fascinated by the psychology behind these myths. OP, do you have any theories about why these similar myths occur in different areas?

These are from where I grew up (Oxfordshire) I lived in kingham, then moved not far from Minster Lovell - although the story here I get confused with the 'grey lady' at the ruins who died hiding in a chest on her wedding night.

I also worked and lived for a period of time in the bull at Burford (15th century inn) We had reports of a floating ladies head in room six. Never saw anything myself!
I took these accounts from the 'paranormal database' as they're clear and concise.

White Lady

Location: Kingham - Langston Arms Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1964
Further Comments: Her appearance preluded by coughing and shuffling sounds, this apparition of an old woman was seen by staff and customers as she passed down the corridors of the hotel.

Grey Lady

Location: Minster Lovell - Mill and Old Swan public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Grey Lady unknown, other activities 2008 - 2011
Further Comments: The grey lady is said to be a former landlady who finds it hard to leave. Another woman haunts this site, after hiding in a chest and remaining undiscovered for several years (a la Thomas Haynes Bayly's The Mistletoe Bough). Staff have also reported a knife flying across the restaurant, footsteps and bangs from a locked room, and a man who stood by the bar after closing time who then vanished. Just outside the pub a black figure with no features other than white eyes was spotted

Grey Lady

Location: Horspath - Manor house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December 1878
Further Comments: Killed by her husband and her body hidden in a priest hole, this phantom grey lady has been seen several times. In 1878 a man armed with a pistol fired three rounds at the ghost, only to find two bullet holes left in the wall behind where the figure had stood.

Ordsall Hall in Salford allegedly has a White Lady, supposedly Margaret Radcliffe who was lady in waiting to Elizabeth I. Margaret stopped eating after her brother died, and starved to death

Wemyss castle (green lady) and Dunraven castle (blue lady) have the right idea. Moving away from boring old grey and adding a bit of colour. I like a disruptor ghost.

I now look forward to hearing about a yellow lady. Or a red lady. Surely somewhere has got one?

How come so many of the grey ladies we have heard about on this thread are flinging themselves off towers and the dress circle (where they supposedly haunt theatres) after being dumped by their boyfriends? Is that in the grey lady contract?

@NorthernBelle84

Nc in case outing . . . 😁

The Grey Lady who killed herself when Bobby Shaftoe didn't marry her, supposedly haunts both Brancepeth Castle and Durham Castle (University College) as well as possibly Beamish. Though I think the Beamish version is probably an addition for tourist value.

How is this outing. Are you gasp actually the grey lady 😱

I think Aston Hall in Birmingham is meant to have a Grey Lady ghost, I think she's a wronged woman type ghost too.

I came on to say Acklam Hall in the North East but see it already gets a mention or two. I lived very close by, went to school there , rumour was she used to visit the science labs in the quadrangle. She was also a frequent visitor to the graveyard of St.Mary’s church built in the grounds. We used to scare each other walking through the graveyard to our confirmation classes in the dark!

The town I grew up in had a grey lady who frequents the pubs and one particular high street shop which in used to be a palace belonging to the bishops of London.

There were stories she'd been seen at our school, but most schools with old buildings have those tales.