Robin Hood's Bay - The Smugglers' Spirits
A picturesque coastal village with a dark smuggling past, where phantom smugglers still run contraband through secret tunnels.
Robin Hood’s Bay, a precipitous fishing village clinging to the Yorkshire coast, was once England’s smuggling capital. In the 18th and 19th centuries, every house in the village was connected by secret passages and tunnels, allowing smugglers to move contraband from the beach to the hilltop without ever stepping outdoors. Revenue men who came to enforce the law often met violent ends, as did smugglers caught and hanged as examples. The village’s labyrinthine geography and bloody history have created a supernatural hotspot where the past bleeds into the present.
The most famous haunting is the phantom smugglers who appear on foggy nights, carrying barrels and packages up from the shore. Witnesses report seeing groups of men in 18th-century clothing moving with purpose through the narrow streets, only to vanish into walls or fade away when approached. The old smuggling tunnels, many now collapsed or sealed, are sources of intense paranormal activity. Property owners whose cellars connect to the tunnel network report footsteps, whispered conversations in archaic dialect, and the sound of barrels being rolled across stone floors in the dead of night.
The village’s ancient pubs, particularly the Dolphin Inn and the Bay Hotel, experience regular supernatural phenomena. Phantom sea shanties echo through empty bars, glasses move on their own, and patrons report seeing the ghost of a revenue man with a slashed throat sitting by the fire before vanishing. The beach itself, where smuggling boats once landed under cover of darkness, is haunted by the cries of drowning men - smugglers who perished when storms caught their overladen vessels. Local fishermen refuse to launch boats on certain nights when the phantom voices are particularly loud, believing it portends disaster.