Pluckley in Kent, England has often been nominated as the most haunted village in the Kingdom for it has no less than a dozen well described and substantiated ghosts within its borders.

The Dering family occupied the local manor house (known as Surrenden Dering) and took a leading part in the community’s administration for around three hundred years. Surrenden Dering is haunted by ‘The White Lady’ - a former Lady Dering who was so beautiful that upon her death her husband had her embalmed (and encased in four coffins - three of lead and an outer one of oak) so that he could continue to look upon her for the rest of his days. She was dressed in her best gown and a red rose was placed at her bosom. However, denying her a decent and prompt burial caused her restless spirit to protest and she has apparently remained with the building (now a ruin) ever since.

An American named Walter Winans, a wealthy big game hunter, lived in the house for a time. He doubted the villagers’ stories about the ‘White Lady’ and one Christmas Eve (a particularly active period for the ghost), armed with a rifle, he sat up all night to see for himself. When she appeared, he fired two shots at her (they both penetrated the wall opposite his position). She vanished and Winans was left with nothing but the bullet holes to contemplate.

During World War Two, like many large country residences, the manor house was used as a billet for troops. Unfortunately, one of the rooms was the lair of a poltergeist and the soldiers flatly refused to sleep in that part of the building. When, in October 1952, Surrenden Dering was burnt down in a mysterious fire, the poltergeist was considered by many local people to be responsible for the blaze.

The parish church of St Nicholas is haunted by another Lady Dering (she has been dubbed ‘The Red Lady’). She is a sorrowful phantom, searching for the baby she lost and sometimes seen looking for the child inside the church near the family vault or outside in the graveyard near the Derings’ tomb.

Not far from the churchyard are two old houses - Greystones and Rose Court. Greystones is haunted by the shade of a reclusive cleric - the house’s former owner who is sometimes referred to as ‘The Monk’. The mistress of Rose Court was a regular visitor to Greystones in life and often enjoyed its pious inhabitant’s genial hospitality. After she passed away, her shade has continued to call at that destination and locals report that her voice is often heard summoning her dogs as she walks between the two homes.

Barely a stone’s-throw from St Nicholas’ Churchyard is Dicky Buss’s Lane. The village schoolmaster hanged himself in this spot (nobody is quite sure why) and his ghost haunts the scene of his suicide. It’s equally uncertain why the ghost of a long dead miller haunts every full moon near the ruin of the old mill at Pinnock Stream. Near the crossroads where the stream chuckles under a small stone bridge there is the strangest of Pluckley’s ghosts...that of the old ‘Watercress Woman’ who dozed off to sleep while smoking her pipe at the side of the stream where she had been gathering cress. The gin-stained shawl around her shoulders caught fire and she burned to death.

She shares her haunt with with the ghost of a highwayman. He used to hide in a hollow tree and ambush travellers. For a time the ruse served him well, but he resorted to the trick once too often. One day he was inside the tree and intent upon waylaying a man who was on the Charing to Binnenden Road. But his prospective victim had heard about the robber’s tactic and when he had to pass the tree, he drew his sword and thrust it through the trunk. The highwayman’s ghastly impaled ghost has been seen ever since by the decaying remains of his hollow oak at the aptly named Fright Corner.

Park Wood (about 1.5 miles south of Pluckley’s centre) is stalked by a phantom known as ‘The Colonel’s Ghost’ - the wood was supposedly one of his favourite haunts in life and he was reluctant to leave it even in death. By old Pluckley Station is the Brickfield, close by here a screaming ghost sometimes haunts the clayhole down which he fell to his death.

Finally, there is a phantom coach, drawn by spectral horses which clatters its way through the village’s main street towards Maltmans Hill and Smarden (four miles away).

A visitor produced the following report about Pluckley

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Pluckley in Kent is the most haunted village in England. With a recorded twelve ghosts it is no surprise that many a ghost hunter has been spotted in this picturesque Kentish village.

Although, there is no official guided ghost tour of the village a comprehensive self-guided tour has been developed telling the intrepid ghost hunter the important locations and stories attached to them. This self guided tour covers a circuitous route of approximately four miles which winds its way around the village and adjacent countryside.

The starting point of the tour is St Nicholas Church and its graveyard. As you stand in this church you get a sense of the full ghostly history that permeates the village. Not least are the women ghosts of the Dering family, who are said to haunt the church due to their broken hearts, from the White Lady who tragically died at an early age to the Red Lady who wanders around the churchyard looking for her long lost child.

As you leave the church you proceed down the country lanes stopping at many historical places such as the Blacksmith’s Forge Tea Room which houses the ghosts of a maid and a cavalier soldier and then on to the Dering Woods commonly known as Screaming Woods. The last point of call on the tour is the fourteenth century Black Horse Inn frequented by two unknown ghosts; one who moves the pub’s cutlery and a lady ghost in a red dress.

Unfortunately, no ghosts appeared on this tour but the stories created an atmosphere where anything seemed possible and a no-mans-land was created in the mind where imagination and doubt inter-mix. This heightened air of expectation was definitely felt when the unexpected emergence of the local rector as an apparent apparition from the side door of the church sent a sudden chill down the spine.

Although no ghosts appeared, this quaint village and the wonderful history attached to it brings back memories of stories told to susceptible children around glowing fires. Speaking of which, the food and drink in the Black Horse Inn was typical of a country pub; delicious food with a welcoming atmosphere where a bright fire burnt in the hearth. All in all it was an incredibly enjoyable evening.