Ghost · Minster Lovell
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Still at his desk after two hundred years.
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English Heritage free site, open any reasonable time; short walk from the church. Check before you go.
Workmen broke into a sealed room and found a man still sitting at his desk, a skeleton, with his pen.
The roofless ruins of Minster Lovell Hall stand beside the River Windrush. It was the home of Francis, Viscount Lovell, Richard III's friend, who vanished after the rebels lost the battle of Stoke in 1487. In 1708 workmen rebuilding a chimney found a hidden vault. Inside, it was said, a man's skeleton sat at a table with a book, pen and paper. People decided this was Lovell, hidden by a servant and starved when the servant died. English Heritage describes the hall but not the legend.