Lavenham - Suffolk's Most Haunted Village

Lavenham is England’s finest example of a medieval wool town, its wealth frozen in timber and plaster when the wool trade collapsed in the 16th century. The village’s 340 listed buildings lean and sag with centuries of settling, creating a disorienting landscape of crooked walls and slanting floors. This architectural time capsule appears to preserve not just buildings but the spirits of those who lived and died here across six centuries. Lavenham has earned its reputation as Suffolk’s most haunted village through sheer volume and variety of supernatural phenomena.

The Guildhall, a magnificent 16th-century timber-framed building, experiences intense paranormal activity. Staff and visitors report seeing a hooded monk gliding through walls where doorways once existed, the apparition of a young girl in Tudor dress who appears in upper floor windows, and the sound of medieval craft work - hammering, sawing, and the clack of looms - emanating from empty rooms. The building’s prison cells, used during the witch trial hysteria, harbor particularly dark energy. Visitors report feelings of terror and suffocation, and some have experienced phantom hands grasping at their throats.

The Swan Hotel, a 14th-century inn, is haunted by multiple entities including a cavalier from the Civil War, phantom children who laugh and run through corridors, and a mysterious presence in the Tudor Room that moves objects and turns electronics on and off. Private residences throughout the village report similar activity - footsteps in empty rooms, doors opening and closing, voices speaking Middle English, and apparitions of people in period dress who vanish when approached. The medieval church of St Peter and St Paul, with its soaring tower, is surrounded by centuries of graves and witnesses report seeing phantom funeral processions approaching the church at twilight, complete with mourners in period costume and a horse-drawn hearse that fades before reaching the gates.