Raynham Hall (pictured above) is a country house and for nearly 400 years has been the seat of the Townshend family. It is reputedly haunted, and provides the scene for one of the most famous and well-documented ghost photos of all time - the infamous Brown Lady descending the staircase - taken in 1936 and featured in the Country Life magazine.

 

The origins of the apparition stem from 1713, when the then Lord Townshend married Robert Walpole's sister, Dorothy. She was his second wife, and is reputed in the gossip of the time to have been previously the mistress of Lord Wharton. Lady Townshend was buried in 1726, but story has it that she did not die and that the funeral was a “mock interment”. Instead, she was rumoured to have been incarcerated in the house by her husband. This is the reason why the phantom of Dorothy is said still to haunt the staircase at twilight.

 

Other apparitions sighted at Raynham include a woman in pink, a Cavalier dressed in red, and two children.