Ghost
White Lady of Hadleigh
Miss her midnight meeting and she comes for you.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Ruined 13th-century castle towers above the Thames estuary
- Legend from
- Victorian record
- Best time
- Dawn
- Tone
- Eerie
Hadleigh Castle's ruins are ahead. A milkmaid once broke a promise to the lady in white who haunts them.
The broken towers of Hadleigh Castle look out over the Thames marshes, and Philip Benton recorded in 1867 that a woman in white was said to haunt the ruins. A milkmaid from the castle farm met her at dawn and was told to come back at midnight. She did not go. The next morning the lady met her again and boxed her ear so hard that her neck was nearly put out, and ever after the girl was known as Wry-neck Sall. Later retellings say the ghost struck her with her own milk bucket. Modern accounts also mention a black dog and stories that Dick Turpin hid here.