Haunted hotels and their ghost stories

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, there have been some pretty ghoulish goings on in some of our hotels...

Published: Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Do you like a good scare?

From the screaming maid spotted at the Best Western Walworth Castle Hotel in Darlington to a ghostly bride haunting a honeymoon suite at the Best Western Rose & Crown Hotel in Colchester, there are some star spooks out there. But don’t worry – our friendly Best Western staff will protect you from the supernatural guests and ensure your stay is a dream, not a nightmare.

Read on below as we highlight some of the best ghost stories from our haunted hotels...

The Screaming Maid

Castles are a natural home for ghosts and Best Western Walworth Castle Hotel near Darlington is no exception. Head for the Library Tower on the ground floor to meet a maid who once worked in the castle. Apparently, she was the mistress of one of the lords and, you guessed it, was murdered by him when she fell pregnant. Her screams have been heard coming through the wall and she’s also been known to sit at the end of beds.

The Dripping Ghost

At the Best Western Lord Haldon Hotel near Exeter, witnesses have reported seeing an upset and soaking wet 18th century servant girl wandering through the hotel. The story is she was made pregnant by an aristocratic house guest who drowned her in a lake in the grounds to avoid a scandal. Nice. She’s not alone in this haunted hotel and there have also been sightings of a burly man with rolled up sleeves, who appears in the window of the lounge and a young girl who might knock on your door in the middle of the night.

The White Lady of Mosborough Hall

The Lord John Darcy Suite is said to be haunted by the White Lady of Mosborough Hall. The story of the White Lady, goes back to the late 1600’s. A governess at the Hall had flirted with the squire and found herself to be pregnant. He promised her monies and a small cottage, but finding himself in some financial restraint had finally refused. The angry voices are reputed to be their last bitter argument when the girl’s final threat to tell his wife led to her tragic death. He had visited her room on the pretext of keeping his promises and in one moment of desperation had slit the poor girl’s throat. It was told she kept a large dog and that the dog pined to death at the side of her body.

So, are you brave enough to stay overnight at the Mosborough Hall Hotel in the Lord John Darcy Suite?

Best Western Rose & Crown Hotel

The Best Western Rose and Crown Hotel was originally a 14th-century coaching inn, the oldest hotel in England’s oldest recorded town. In the 1950s a night porter saw a ghostly bride as he was going up the stairs in reception. It is reported she wears a white lace wedding dress, garnished with a red flower. Around her neck, she wears a white pearl necklace with matching earrings.

Her presence has been sensed in room 204, the Honeymoon Suite. The bride’s identity is not known. The local rumour is that she was the unfaithful wife of a local farmer. In its historic past, the hotel once housed prisoners, which were transported to Colchester Castle through the hotel’s interconnecting tunnel.

Best Western Shrubbery Hotel

While the Best Western Shrubbery Hotel was built in the 1850s as a private house its history dates back much further, to another house on the same site that was built in the late 17th century with which it shares its foundations and cellars. The hotel is near Ilminster in Somerset, which saw skirmishes in the closing stages of the English Civil War, and might explain why staff have reported seeing the spirit of a Cavalier in the hotel’s dining room.

Other ghostly happenings have included the sound of disembodied voices all over the hotel, including one calling for the wife of the hotel’s first owner in the 1930s, as well as cold spots and the unsettling feeling of being watched or brushed past in the cellars.