Holkham Hall

The ghost is said to be Lady Mary Coke, nicknamed 'The White Cat' because of her "fair hair, pale skin and fierce eyes." When she married Lord Coke a few centuries back, she refused to consummate their marriage as he was a gambler and a drunk. He locked her up in Holkham for a year and eventually her mother freed her. When the Glenconners moved into the hall into the Family Wing of the hall in 1948, one of the girls, Carey, would wake up screaming repeatedly night after night, talking of a lady who had suffered in the hall and who wore old-fashioned clothes - obviously a reference to Lady Mary. It is said that Carey's room was Mary's bedroom and that Mary had been long known to haunt the Hall. Carey became so exhausted from the trauma that she slept in a dressing room, until a local clergyman exorcised the old bedroom. Carey's nightmares ceased but Lady Mary still haunts the remainder of the building; she has been often been heard in the cellar and attic where she slams and opens locked doors but her antics play out in other areas too. She has been seen crying or flitting along a corridor before disappearing, and has even taking to pinching and poking servants. Lady Glenconner talks of the dread of feeling a hand on the back or brushing her cheek. An electrician looked behind him and saw his drawings floating in the air behind him, before fluttering back to the ground; there was no wind to account for such a phenomena. He also returned to his work later on to find two scaffolding struts had been moved but there was no-one around who could have done this. One morning, as the Hall was being unlocked, all the lights of the main state room were found turned on and the doors open. There was no way anyone had a key to perform this, and the alarm had not been activated during the night. A member of staff would find that his TV had been turned on, and that he would often wake to find a photo of his mother turned to face the wall; when his father told the spirit to "stop it", this phenomena ceased in the room. Finally, books have been found moved all over the house.

Link: Eastern Daily Press

Link: Eastern Daily Press

Link: Daily Mail

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