Ghost · Blickling · Famous
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Headless horses, a headless driver and a queen holding her head.
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National Trust property; house, garden and park hours change with the season and there is an admission charge. Check before you go.
Every May, they say, a coach with no heads at all rolls up Blickling's drive, and the queen inside holds her own.
Blickling belonged to the Boleyn family around 1500, and local tradition claims Anne Boleyn as a daughter of the house. Dutt writes that on the anniversary of her execution, Anne rides up to the hall in a hearse-like coach drawn by headless horses and driven by a headless coachman, with her own head in her lap, and vanishes when she reaches the door. Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, has a separate penance. Every year he has to drive a coach with headless horses over a set of Norfolk bridges, carrying his head under his arm, chased by shrieking demons. Accounts disagree on how many bridges there are.