GhostFamous
The Red Lady
A Dering lady in red, among the Pluckley graves.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Medieval village church and churchyard
- Legend from
- Local ghost lore written up from 1939 (Sanders)
- Best time
- Dusk
- Tone
- Eerie
In England's most haunted village, a lady of the old manor family still walks the churchyard, dressed in red.
Pluckley was named England's most haunted village by the Guinness Book of Records in 1989, with around a dozen ghosts. One of the best known is the Red Lady, said to be a member of the Dering family, the old lords of the manor, whose ghost is said to walk the churchyard of St Nicholas in red. The village website lists her separately from a White Lady linked to the Dering chapel. A 2025 article in the journal Folklore traces most of Pluckley's ghost stories to local historian Frederick Sanders's writings from 1939 onward, and a Telegraph journalist doubted the claims in 2008.