Pluckley

Pluckley has been dominated for centuries by the Dering family, whose name is on the woods, the chapel in St Nicholas church (built in 1475) and the village pub by the station, the Dering Arms. Their mansion, Surrenden Dering, burned down around 1952. The parish church itself dates largely from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and is Grade I listed, and it is the setting for two of the village's oldest ghost stories, both attached to Dering women.

The village's haunted reputation is much more recent than its ghosts. Research by Dr Moreton of UWE Bristol, drawing on newspapers, parish records and archives, found that the "most haunted village" title was first accorded in 1950 and that ten of the stories were first written down by a local man, Frederick Sanders, in self-published ghost-hunting books, letters to the press and articles from 1955 onwards, beginning with Pluckley Was My Playground. Sanders did not invent the tales, but he embroidered them, and sometimes contradicted himself from one telling to the next.

The 1989 Guinness Book of Records mention, which named Pluckley the most haunted village in Britain with twelve ghosts, was a mention rather than an award, but it stuck. Behind the folklore lie real events: Sarah Sharp, remembered as the Watercress Woman, burned to death in August 1911; Richard Bridgland died in an accident at the brick and tile works quarry in January 1899 and became the Screaming Man of the Clay Pit; Mary Ann Bennett took her own life in 1862 and is remembered as the Lady of Rose Court.

Reports from Pluckley are, by their nature, mostly anecdotal. The recurring claims are the screams from Dering Woods after dark, figures glimpsed in the churchyard, an unexplained light or figure on Pinnock Bridge, and the vanishing belongings at the Black Horse. Paranormal investigators such as KASE Paranormal have written frankly about what a night in Pluckley is actually like, and the US series Ghost Hunters International filmed an episode titled "Haunted Village" here. Guides tend to list anywhere between ten and seventeen ghosts, with twelve being the figure quoted in the 1989 Guinness entry.

The sceptical view is unusually well documented. Dr Moreton's UWE Bristol study, reported by LBC and others, found that the "most haunted village" tag began in 1950 and that most of the individual stories can be traced to Frederick Sanders in the mid-1950s. At least four of the ghosts can be matched to real recorded deaths, including Sarah Sharp in 1911, Richard Bridgland in 1899 and Mary Ann Bennett in 1862, which suggests the village was doing what villages always do: keeping the memory of its dead alive through stories. Sanders elaborated as he went, so details differ from one account to the next.

The other well-recorded phenomenon is the ghost hunters themselves. When The Darling Buds of May, starring David Jason and Catherine Zeta-Jones, was filmed in the village between 1991 and 1993, visitor numbers soared, and Halloween 1991 saw police overwhelmed by crowds of would-be ghost hunters. In more recent years residents have complained of being kept awake into the early hours and have asked for extra police patrols on Halloween night. Kent Online has even reported the local tale that the village's reputation helped scare motorway planners away from routing the M20 through the woods.

Pluckley is a living village, not a theme park, so the first rule of visiting is to treat it as you would want your own street treated. Almost everything worth seeing is on public land: St Nicholas church and its churchyard are open to visitors, public footpaths run through Dering Woods, and Fright Corner and Pinnock Bridge are on the lanes. Please keep out of gardens and farmland, keep quiet at night, and think twice about Halloween, when residents are at their least patient.

The Black Horse, next to the church, serves food and drink and is the natural base for a ghost walk; the Dering Arms, down by the railway station, is another good stop. Self-guided ghost-walk itineraries are published online, and paranormal groups occasionally run investigations at the pub. Parking is limited, so arrive early or come by train: Pluckley station is on the Ashford to Maidstone line, though services are infrequent.

The village is about five miles west of Ashford in Kent, and there is no accommodation attached to the ghost sites themselves; the widest choice of places to stay is in Ashford, Charing and the surrounding Wealden villages.