Stowe School

Stowe School, housed in one of Britain’s finest stately homes, was originally the seat of the Temple-Grenville family, Dukes of Buckingham, before becoming an independent school in 1923. The magnificent Palladian mansion is set within 750 acres of landscaped gardens designed by Capability Brown and featuring numerous classical temples, grottos, and monuments. This combination of grand architecture, aristocratic history, and romantic landscape has created an atmosphere rich in paranormal activity, with both the house and its famous gardens reporting centuries of ghostly encounters.

The most famous ghost of Stowe is the Pink Lady, believed to be Lady Mary Grenville, who died in 1774. She appears as a luminous figure dressed in an elaborate pink gown, gliding through the State Rooms and South Front of the building, particularly in the areas that were once her private apartments. Students and staff have reported seeing her staring mournfully from windows, as if waiting for someone who will never return. The State Dining Room is particularly active, with witnesses reporting the sensation of walking through invisible figures, the smell of antique perfume, and the sound of 18th-century music and laughter echoing from empty rooms.

Stowe’s famous landscape gardens are equally haunted, with numerous reports of spectral figures appearing among the classical temples. The Temple of Ancient Virtue has been the site of sightings of robed figures that vanish when approached, while the Gothic Temple reportedly harbors a darker presence that fills visitors with inexplicable dread. The Palladian Bridge witnesses apparitions of Georgian-era figures in period dress, and the extensive underground passages and grottos beneath the grounds are considered especially active, with maintenance workers reporting disembodied voices, phantom footsteps, and the sensation of being followed by unseen presences. Night watchmen have documented seeing lights moving through the gardens when all buildings are secured and empty, suggesting Stowe’s ghosts continue to walk its celebrated grounds long after the aristocrats who created them have passed away.