Tower of London

William the Conqueror began the White Tower soon after 1066, and the fortress grew outwards over the following centuries into the concentric castle you see today. Legend says that even the building work was haunted: around 1240, the ghost of Thomas Becket, murdered at Canterbury some seventy years earlier, is claimed to have knocked down a nearly finished tower with his crosier, and Henry III is said to have placated him by adding a chapel dedicated to St Thomas. The Tower also housed the Royal Menagerie for centuries, which is why phantom animals crop up in later reports.

The Tower's darkest reputation comes from the Tudor era. Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen, was tried and beheaded here in 1536, three years after lodging at the Tower in triumph before her coronation. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was executed on Tower Green in 1541 in a notoriously botched beheading. Lady Jane Grey, the 'Nine Days' Queen', was imprisoned and executed in 1554 aged about seventeen. Anne Boleyn lies buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, which stands on the edge of Tower Green.

Earlier still, the boy king Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York, were lodged in the Tower by their uncle in 1483 and were never seen again; they are remembered as the Princes in the Tower. Henry VI is traditionally said to have been murdered while at prayer in the Wakefield Tower on 21 May, and Sir Walter Raleigh spent years as a prisoner in the Bloody Tower. Each episode has a ghost story attached.

What sets the Tower apart from most reputedly haunted castles is who does the reporting. The Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters, are retired senior non-commissioned officers with long military careers, and they live inside the walls with their families. Not a group given to fancy, yet their stories are numerous. In the 1980s, one Warder working in the early hours reportedly looked up to see two Beefeaters in the uniform of a much earlier period standing either side of a fireplace, smoking pipes and deep in conversation. One turned and stared straight back at him before both vanished.

The older written accounts are unusually specific. Swifte's Notes and Queries letters of 1860 set down the 1816 bear and his own 1817 glass cylinder, complete with the detail that the chair he swung at the apparition passed clean through it. Captain Dundas's 1864 account of the sentry and the whitish female figure is retold by Historic Royal Palaces themselves, which is more than most castles can say for their ghosts. The 1957 Salt Tower sighting, the 21 May tradition at the Wakefield Tower for Henry VI, and the children's laughter in the White Tower all recur in modern guides.

The sceptical view is worth airing. Most of the famous stories were first written down in the nineteenth century, when interest in ghosts ran high, and some of the ghost lists that circulate now, running to thirteen or even twenty-one named spirits, include figures such as Thomas Becket and Henry VI whose "sightings" are really traditions rather than witness accounts. Historic Royal Palaces publish the stories as stories, not as claims. Even so, the sheer number of first-hand accounts from sentries, jewel keepers and Warders over two centuries is what gives the Tower of London its lasting hold on the imagination.

The Tower of London is open to the public year-round apart from a few days over Christmas and New Year, and it is one of London's busiest attractions, so book ahead and check the Historic Royal Palaces website for current times. Entry includes the Crown Jewels, the White Tower and a free Yeoman Warder tour that takes in the executions on Tower Green and the famous ghost stories. There is no ghost hunt or overnight vigil here, but the nearest thing to an after-dark visit is the Ceremony of the Keys.

This is the nightly locking-up of the Tower at 21:30 precisely. Around forty to fifty visitors are admitted under escort each night; tickets are free but must be booked online, are released monthly and go quickly.

The Tower stands beside Tower Bridge in Tower Hamlets, Greater London. Tower Hill is the nearest tube and there is no visitor car park. Cobbles and spiral stairs make parts of the site hard-going for wheelchairs. Hotels cluster around Tower Hill, St Katharine Docks and the City, so staying within a short walk is easy.