It’s the spookiest time of the year if you celebrate Halloween, or one of the most important festivals – Samhain – if you’ve an interest in pagan or Celtic lore/history. Samhain traditionally marks the end of summer and the beginning of winter, where darkness overpowers day (in the Northern hemisphere at least) and communities look towards colder nights of enjoying the fruits that summer bore. It’s a time for the warmth of the fire, being indoors, and feasting. Sounds good to me!
If you’re into the spookier stuff, plenty of Halloween events continue on into November, including plenty of ghost tours, ghost hunts, and haunted sleepovers, as I mentioned in my piece about Spooky Places To Visit.
If that’s not your jam, then check out my foodie focused piece about how to cook up an amazing Autumn Feast using ingredients and produce from Northern suppliers.
To be honest, I lean more towards the latter part than the former. Whilst I do love the lighter summer foods, and the brightness of the days, I do find myself loving the “winter” food that we can now enjoy on a colder evening; casserole and dumplings; roast chicken dinner with yorkshire puddings; more pie than can ever be considered a good idea, and plenty more calorific things like that!
The fading of the year needn’t be a time for sadness, thinking that there nothing to look forward until the spring rolls around. Instead, I say we should lean in, and find the beauty in the dark and in the cold. Look out for wildlife that we don’t get to see at other times of the year; take brisk walks through countryside or along the beach, and enjoy the cosy fire (fake or otherwise) when you get home in the evening. Also, statistically, the better telly is on in the winter as well… so there’s always that!
However you’re welcoming in the fading of the year, I urge it to be just that; a welcome. Embrace the chill, and look for the wonder!
It’s spooky season! So, without further ado, I thought I’d do a round up of four haunted places that you can visit and experience the paranormal this Halloween!
Muncaster Castle, Cumbria
Do you want to spend a night in a haunted castle? At Muncaster they offer overnight ghost sits, where a small group can spend the night in the Tapestry Room, listening for the sounds of ghosts. The Tapestry Room is where visitors report disturbed nights, hearing footsteps in the corridor outside, and hearing a child crying from an adjoining room before being comforted by a lady singing. The story linked to this is that of Margaret Pennington, who died in the castle during her childhood from a bout of illness.
Golden Fleece Pub, York
The Golden Fleece Pub stands just over the road from York’s most iconic and historic street – The Shambles. Built before 1503 (this is when it first appears in the city records), and initially owned by the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, functioning as a coaching house. From 1656 it began operating as an inn, but it was not officially licenses until 1668.
The beer garden is named after the most famous ghost of the Fleece; the Lady Alice Peckett, wife of the Lord Mayor of York at the beginning of the eighteenth century; she has been seen walking the hallways and stairways of the pub at night by many guests. Another ghost is reportedly that of a North American airman from World War II, who was staying at the Inn whilst on leave. He leaned out of one of the top floor windows and fell to his death, and there have since been sightings of a ghost wearing Canadian 1940s uniform.
Many of the ghost tours of York feature the Fleece.
Chillingham Castle, Northumberland
The aptly named Chillingham Castle occupied a very strategic position during the bloody border wars between England and Scotland throughout the High and Late Middle Ages, meaning the castle often came under attack, or was raided by invading forces. During his campaign agains the Scots, Edward I stayed at Chillingham in 1298 before continuing on to the battle of Falkirk where the Scottish Leader William Wallace was captured.
Other royals, namely Charles I and Edward VIII, have also stayed at Chillingham.
‘All houses in which men have lived and died are haunted houses. Through the open doors the harmless phantoms on their errands glide, with feet that make no sounds upon the floors.’ – Longfellow, poet, describing Chillingham Castle.
Chillingham offers an array of Ghost Tours and Ghosts Hunts around the castle in the evenings and even overnight. You can see the offers here (although many are already sold out for 2025 – at least you’ll know where to look for next Halloween if it’s your thing!). Will you be (un)fortunate enough to see the pantry ghosts, or hear the spooky voices in the chapel?
The spookiest/grimmest part of Chillingham has got to be the Torture Chamber. A display of medieval implements of punishment and persuasion are on display here, providing brave visitors with information about their grisly purpose and opportunity to thank their lucky stars that such practices are not in use today!
Samlesbury Hall, Lancashire
Samlesbury Hall, located just outside of Blackburn, was built in 1325 by Gilbert de Southworth, and was the primary residence of the Southworth family until the early 17th century. Due to it’s seven hundred year history it’s had plenty of time to collect a few ghosts and spooky stories along the way!
Samlesbury claims that they have thirteen unique ghosts haunting the hall and the grounds. There have been hundreds of spooky reportings from guests, former residents, and staff, across the centuries. The first published account of ghosts at Samlesbury Hall was a book published in 1873, giving the site a long legacy of the paranormal and reporting on it.
The Ghost Room at Samlesbury Hall is located in the attic of the house and was opened in Autumn 2023. This was the first time the room has been open to the public and in use in nearly seven hundred years. Here you can read testimonies, audio stories, and visual media relating to the ghosts that haunt the Hall.
The most famous ghost to haunt the Hall is Lady Dorothea Southworth, often referred to as the ‘Lady In White.’ She has been seen/reported numerous times since Elizabethan times.
Have you ever experienced spooky happenings? Where was it? What was it like? Let me know in the comments below!
It’s official; you can smell it in the air, and feel it in the coolness we’ve had this past week, the blackberries have been ripe for a while (we got five freeze-able boxes last week!), and the trees are just beginning to show their golden glow…
I love this time of the year… the heat of the summer is coming to a close (and this year we have had eight official heatwaves… which is a whole ‘nother issue that I really don’t want to think about it!), although we do sometimes get an Indian summer in September, and that feels like the last burst of summer before autumn officially draws in. Side story, a couple of years ago I was in York for my 30th birthday, and the whole weekend it was 28-31 degrees in the second week of September… that was warm. It made for a wonderful weekend, but it was a little bit weird for it to be that temperature in northern England in September!
But with the start of Autumn, people start looking to the cooler months, Halloween (if you like to celebrate spooky season), cosy jumpers, and homemade hearty soups. I’m definitely looking forward to stews and casseroles cooked in the slow cooker again, which have just felt too hot and heavy to eat throughout the summer. And, with the end of summer, it’s not like we going to run out of stuff to do – the calendar is absolutely packed for September, with plenty more to look forward to in the month’s following. I’ll be doing calendars for October, November, and December as well, pulling out the best of what’s happening in the local area for the rest of the year. If you’d like to keep up with what’s happening, sign-up for free to receive a weekly newsletter.
This time of the year has always been important throughout history. In the Northern Hemisphere it’s the time of the harvest and preparation, and the time to give thanks (whatever that means for different cultures) for food and sustenance before the winter comes in. In Celtic culture deities such as Danu and Lugh were honoured at the time of the harvest, with even more celebrations towards the traditional festival of Samhain, which has a heavy focus on the cyclical nature of life and death, and the transitions between worlds in different religions and cultures. For the Romans, the beginning of Autumn and the harvest brought holidays and festivals honouring the goddess Ceres (Goddess of the harvest), and Pomona (Goddess of fruit trees), amongst others. At the end of the season, the Romans celebrated the festival of Saturnalia, honouring Saturn, the God of time and renewal.
As for me, I’m looking forward to cooler days spent by the sea in Arnside, Silverdale, or Grange-Over-Sands, breathing in the crisp Autumn air. I love getting my jackets back out of the wardrobe, to not worry about overheating in my jeans or my leather trousers, and being able to wear my boots again. Autumn hits different to winter in this respect, because I’m not a huge fan of having to bundle up every time I step outside, but we haven’t reached that point yet.
And yes, sure, it rains more in autumn than it does in the summer, especially in the North-West. It comes with the territory… there’s a saying in Manchester that “if you can’t see the Pennines, it’s raining; and if you can, it’s going to rain,” which definitely has more than a grain of truth to it! Aside from anything else, after the spring and summer we’ve just had, we need the rain – our reservoirs are seriously low, and farmers have been saying that they’re on track to lose about 30% of their vegetable crop due to lack of water. So, in that vein I’d like to invite people to enjoy the rain. Of course, too much rain can be catastrophic, that’s not what I’m saying or trying to invite, I’m just talking about your typical rainy day. Find a way to enjoy it. Remember what it was like when you were a child and you’d splash in puddles and catch raindrops on your tongue, find things to do that don’t require going outside (there’s plenty of them!), and if it’s really not your thing, think about how much cosier the inside of your house or room is when it’s raining outside… take that nap with zero guilt because you can’t go out anyway. Win, win as far as I’m concerned!
Photo by Brigette Tohm
What are you looking forward to the most as the cooler months roll in? Let me know, or come say hi on Instagram or TikTok (@thenorthishlass)! I’d love to hear from you…
