The B1363 Alnwick Phantom Coach: No Source Found

A coach drawn by black horses races along the B1363 near Alnwick Castle, a headless coachman on the box. That is the story earlier versions of this page told. We could not find it in any folklore catalogue, newspaper or local history. There is also a simpler problem. The B1363 does not go anywhere near Alnwick.

What the record actually shows

We checked the Paranormal Database, the largest catalogue of British folklore and ghost reports, for both places. Its Alnwick entries are the castle’s medieval revenant, a fairy ring at Chathill Farm, a wishing well called the Pin Well and a set of “cursed” bottles at Ye Olde Cross pub. None is a coach. Its North Yorkshire entries for villages on the real B1363 include a poltergeist at the former Malt Shovel in Oswaldkirk and a ghostly girl at Gilling Castle. None of those is a coach either.

Phantom coaches do turn up elsewhere in Northumberland in the same catalogue. At Craster Tower, on the coast north-east of Alnwick, an owner is said to have heard the wheels of an invisible coach on the drive. At the Britannia pub in Cleadon, which the database files under Northumberland, a coach and horses is said to haunt the area. Neither is on a B road and neither has a headless driver.

The likeliest explanation is that this page was written from a template. A road number, a famous castle and a stock ghost were put together without a source behind them.

The history behind the legend

Alnwick does have a genuine and very old ghost story, and it is far stranger than a coach. Writing in the late twelfth century, the chronicler William of Newburgh told of a former master of the castle who rose from his grave at night to roam the town. People blamed him for spreading disease. When they dug him up they found a swollen corpse that poured out fresh blood when pierced with a spade, and they burned it outside the town. Historic England retold the tale in 2016. Our page on Alnwick Castle covers the castle’s other traditions.

The castle has belonged to the Percy family since the early fourteenth century, and the Percys feature in many Northumbrian legends. The headless coachman himself is a stock figure across Britain and Ireland. In Irish tradition the death coach, the cóiste bodhar or “silent coach”, is driven by a headless rider and comes as an omen of death. Stories like it attach easily to any great house with a long drive and a powerful family.

How to read it

There is no legend here to weigh. We found no sighting, no witness and no printed version of an Alnwick phantom coach, on the B1363 or on any other road. The road number is wrong, and the details are generic. We treat the story as unsourced. If you know of a printed source, such as a Northumberland newspaper, a folklore collection or a parish history, we would like to see it and correct this page.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Stillington, North Yorkshire - the B1363 between York and Oswaldkirk runs through the village
• Wikipedia, Gilling East - village on the B1363 road between York and Helmsley
• The Paranormal Database, Northumberland (Alnwick, Craster Tower #1414 and Cleadon #14424 entries) - folklore catalogue, no Alnwick coach listed
• The Paranormal Database, North Yorkshire (Oswaldkirk and Gilling entries) - folklore catalogue for villages on the B1363
• Historic England, “7 spooky tales from England’s haunted castles”, 24 October 2016 - the Alnwick revenant recorded by William of Newburgh
• Wikipedia, Death coach - the phantom coach and headless driver as a folklore type