Explore the Spookiest Places in Bury St Edmunds

There's a reason that the town's popular Ghostly and Macabre Walk ends up at the The Great Churchyard, within the shadow of The Norman Tower and next to St Edmundsbury Cathedral, it really is spooky at night.

There are approximately 1,200 monuments in The Great Churchyard and two box tombs in the churchyard that dates back to the 1630s. There's a memorial to the 17 Protestant martyrs who were executed in the town on the orders of Queen Mary I. Most of them were burnt at the stake and this was erected in 1903. Each face of the rectangular base has an inscribed panel, the 4th has inscribed: 'Who, for their faithful testimony to God's truth during the reign of Queen Mary suffered death in this town 1555-1558'.

The grass area between the Norman Tower and The West Front (where houses are built into the original Abbey West Front) was also part of The Great Churchyard, but in 1958 many of the monuments were removed and some re-positioned.

The Great Churchyard is believed to be haunted. Bury St Edmunds' most famous ghostly (undead) resident is The Grey Lady. She is said to appear annually on 24 February at 11pm.

The Great Churchyard, completely full up due to so so many burials over the years, led to Charnal House being built around 1300 to house all the disturbed bones.

The Abbey's Abbot John of Northwold was so disturbed by the old bones being "indecently cast forth and left", and so the Charnel House was built to hold the disturbed bones.

Two chamberlains were entrusted to say prayers on a regular basis over those buried in the crypt. After the dissolution of the Abbey in 1539 the Charnel House became a blacksmith’s forge and an inn of all things.

It was in 1845, over 300 years after the dissolution of the Abbey, that some poor soul fell through the floor of The Charnel House and was surrounded by thousands of bones. It is now one of only a surviving handful in the country and very spooky.

Moyse's Hall is a 12th Century medieval building which has a rich and varied past including serving as the town's Bridewell, a workhouse, and police station. It first opened as a museum in 1899.

The museum offers a fascinating view into the past with collections that document the foundation of the early town – from the creation and dissolution of the abbey, to prison paraphernalia, and from a remarkable collection relating to the notorious Red Barn Murder to artefacts providing intriguing insights into superstition, wolves and witchcraft.

It has been the focus of ghost tales for centuries. The oldest of these stories dates back to 1328, when a woman is recorded as saying she saw ‘a most horrible devil’ in the building’s cellar.

The Nutshell may hold the title of smallest pub in Britain as confirmed in the Guinness Book of Records, but with ghost stories, a mummified cat and a very strange history, it could also be Britain's spookiest pub.

With links to the Bury St Edmunds witch trials, hauntings, a mummified cat over the bar linked to a curse and a skeleton hand among many other unusual exhibits, there is much to view and talk about while you enjoy a drink.

The only cobbled street in the centre and the only real medieval street left in Bury St Edmunds, its name doesn’t leave too much to the imagination, as it is where animals were skinned back in the day.

You can just picture the horrible scene, with blood and offal running down the street, combined with the remnants of the fish markets. This would all flow down the gutters of the street, creating an incredibly foul smell in that part of town.

At night this street becomes very spooky with the tales of ghosts and eery lighting.