Ghost
Grey Lady at the Inn
At midnight, the clocks in the Great Hall stop.
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- What's there
- 15th-century coaching inn with courtyard, stables, stained glass
- Legend from
- Building 1455; ghost lore modern
- Tone
- Eerie
In Aylesbury's old market square, the King's Head has hosted kings, so they say, and a grey lady who never left.
The King's Head, tucked down a cobbled passage off Aylesbury's Market Square, is a fifteenth-century coaching inn now owned by the National Trust. Royal legends cling to it: Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou are said to have stayed in 1455, Henry VIII to have courted Anne Boleyn here, and Cromwell to have rested after Worcester. Ghost stories add a grey lady, possibly a nun from the nearby friary, seen by the Great Hall fireplace; a nineteenth-century maid said to haunt the gatehouse stair where she fell; and a tall figure in a black hat and coat. Clocks in the Great Hall are said to stop at midnight.