Woburn Abbey

Woburn has been the home of the Dukes of Bedford for over three centuries. Since the opening in 1955, millions of tourists have visited Woburn, inspecting its treasures and 3000 acre deer park; very popular for deer hunting.
The house was rebuilt by Inigo Jones in the mid-18th century and a century later, additional buildings were added to the house. Today Woburn has one of the most important art collections in the world as well as collections of English and French furniture.

So what could be haunting this nice castle? Many visitors have felt a presence in some rooms on the top floor of the castle. They were reflecting an tremendous atmosphere of misery and unhappiness- poor souls, probably can’t find their ways to a better place, it’s not fun to stay in the same place over and over again- So who are these ghosts? Well, apparently, many guests have said to see different figures, one of them one morning the Duchess found Paul Getty jumping up and down in the corridor where the guest bedrooms were situated. He told her that a woman guest had complained that the door to her bedroom and dressing room had kept opening in the night and she had to get up five times to shut them. The reason why Paul was jumping was to see if there was a vibration from the corridor affecting the doors.

The ghost of a monk is also haunting the Abbey and has been seen mostly in the crypt – ohh, it does sounds like The Tales of the Crypt- Freaky- where he was buried centuries ago. He is thought to be the abbot of Woburn who was hanged when he opposed Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn. But this monk is not the most powerful ghost on the premises. And the most recent haunting of the Abbey that took place is the ghost of a young man who was half strangled and later drowned in the lake – now, come one, that’s not nice, barbarians!- But he still likes to hang around from time to time. Guests claim that they have seen doors open and close for him as he enters the rooms.

The Abbey is not the only place to be haunted by a friendly ghost. The summerhouse is haunted by the Duke’s grandmother. Her plane mysteriously crashed on the east cost, she died at the age of 64. It is not her ghost that haunts the place but an overwhelming feeling of sadness, as if her unhappy spirit lives on and carries on- maybe she just likes it over there and just wants to stay. Who knows?