There are ghost hunts, and then there are ghost hunts where the weather decides to be the most dramatic thing of the evening. Our visit to Pluckley in Kent was very much the second sort!
Pluckley has a reputation as one of England’s most haunted villages, so it seemed a fitting place for a spooky outing. Our guide certainly looked the part, with a black coat, tricorn hat, striking red scarf and a lantern glowing green. The churchyard at dusk added plenty of atmosphere. Unfortunately, the only thing that actually turned up for us was the rain.
A village with a very long history
Pluckley is much older than its ghostly reputation. It appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Pluchelei, when it was held by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Its parish church, St Nicholas, has origins in Anglo-Saxon times, although much of the building seen today dates from later centuries.
For centuries the Dering family played a prominent part in village life, and their name remains tied to several of the local legends. Pluckley was also a farming community, and its railway station became important for sending agricultural produce away after the railway arrived in 1842. During the First World War, the area was used as a remount centre for horses.
So where did all the ghosts come from?
The village is associated with roughly a dozen ghost stories, although the number changes depending on who’s telling them. Among the best known are the Red Lady, said to wander St Nicholas’s churchyard, the White Lady, a phantom horse and carriage, and a highwayman whose final moments are supposedly replayed near the village.
There are also tales of a screaming man at the old brickworks and strange sounds in the woods. They make wonderfully creepy stories, especially when you’re standing outside as the light fades. But they are legends, not established evidence that ghosts are wandering around Kent.
What surprised me was that Pluckley’s famous haunted reputation is relatively recent. Local writer Frederick Sanders helped bring the stories to public attention during the mid-twentieth century, calling it England’s most haunted village in 1950. The village was later mentioned in the 1989 Guinness Book of Records, although research suggests that was a mention rather than a formal award.
More than ghosts
Pluckley has another claim to fame. The village and surrounding countryside were used in the television series The Darling Buds of May, which began in 1991. So this little corner of Kent has two quite different reputations: a picture-perfect English village and a place full of spooky tales.
Our ghost hunt, complete with rain
We came away with photographs of our wonderfully eerie-looking guide and the churchyard, but no ghostly encounter to report. And then it rained. That was our supernatural excitement for the evening!
I thought I had taken many more photographs, but the others seem to have disappeared. At least these seven survived, which is more than can be said for our chances of staying dry.
Still, I’m glad we went. There’s something rather fun about visiting a village with centuries of history and a dozen ghost stories attached to it, even if the only thing following you home is the rain.
A little more about Pluckley
For the village history and ghost legends, see the Pluckley village website. Research into how the stories developed was published by UWE Bristol in 2025.