IT WAS A DARK & STORMY NIGHT…

…When I Spent Halloween at a Haunted English Manor House.

The wind-swept Salisbury Plains are just a few miles west of London, but exploring these barren and chilly hills on a grey October day a number of years ago, I felt as if I had also stepped back a millennia or two: I could feel the presence of Druids dancing around me at the pillars at Stonehenge, and when I checked into my hotel a few miles away, a cold mist instantly seeped into my very being, confirming the hotel advertisement that the place was indeed, haunted. But that was part of its appeal for me: I mean, if you find yourself on the dank Salisbury Plains around Halloween, and there’s a hotel nearby advertising itself as haunted, why wouldn’t you stay there?

Now, the English don’t fool around with Halloween too much, and they definitely don’t muck about with their haunted castles and such. England is the land, after all, where ghosts still walk the bloody towers, haunt the moors, and play starring roles in the greatest works of English literature. In England, ghosts don’t just appear on Halloween; they are front and center around just about every old stone or two, so no need to wait for a silly commercial celebration like All Hallow’s Eve to experience the ectoplasm. Just check right in to ye olde Manor House down the road, and get ready to experience the real deal, just about any time. This almost off-handed, muted…