It’s not just novelty jumpers and Father Christmas that make an appearance over the midwinter period—now is the season for ghostly apparitions, paranormal activity, and dark magick.
We all know the shape of a 21st-century Christmas. A tree covered in lights, tinsel and baubles in preparation for Santa’s visit. Sugar-hyped kids in reindeer-decorated pyjamas. The sharp character reassessment that arrives when you realise just how seriously your favourite auntie takes a game of Risk.
For all the occasional stresses of days spent with your nearest and dearest, it’s a time to rest and recuperate before facing the long drag into spring that follows as inevitably as a hangover on New Year’s Day. But it wasn’t always thus.
As another tradition hints—that of the seasonal ghost story epitomised by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—the festive season, which falls around the longest night of the year, is reputedly a time when the veil between the worlds grows thin. It’s the perfect time for sharing eerie stories by candlelight, tapping into a cultural current that flows from the pre-Christian era.
The Pagan Origins of Winter Ghosts
“If you look back at winter solstice celebrations, certainly in Scandinavia, there was a popular belief about a ghost procession across the sky called the Wild Hunt,” says Dr Kate Cherrell, a broadcaster, writer and researcher specialising in paranormal history. “That was where gods and ravens joined with Odin as he commanded his hunt across the sky.”
As the old religion died out, pagan stories didn’t simply disappear. Instead, supernatural beliefs associated with midwinter were “shoehorned” into Christianity. In the medieval era, Christmas Eve was strongly associated with eldritch happenings.
“There were fears that cats and dogs could be overheard speaking like people,” says Kate. Echoing the manger story, livestock might be seen “bowing down to worship Christ.” Other stories are darker. Think of Krampus, a kind of semi-demonic Santa sidekick said to punish bad children. Or stories of the devil targeting those “who broke the sanctity of Christmas Eve” by behaving inappropriately.
“If people today are going out for their traditional Christmas Eve pint and have one too many, they should be mindful the devil doesn’t nobble them on their way home,” Kate suggests.
Spooky Southwest
It seems that Christmas, perhaps even more than Halloween, is a time to see ghouls, ghosts and spirits. For the curious and open-minded, there are plenty of opportunities to go out after dark with paranormal researchers, visiting locations where things go bump in the night.
You won’t need to travel far. According to Kate, Bristol and Bath are renowned for the sheer number of paranormal locations. Few, however, offer seasonal-specific tales like Holford’s Christmas Eve story of a coach pulled by spectral horses.
The subculture of paranormal investigation in the southwest is strong. “People find their communities,” Kate says of those who gather around this shared enthusiasm.
She’s talking about people like Karin Beasant, a consultant for Visit Somerset who advises heritage businesses on opening up sites for paranormal investigations. Her laugh is well known to locals from her appearances on BBC Radio Bristol. Karin is cheerfully unfazed by her experiences at locations like:
- SS Great Britain, haunted by the ghost of its former skipper, Captain Gray
- Warmley Clocktower, formerly a pin factory, now a community space where people report footsteps and slamming doors
“I’ve had weird things happen there,” says Karin, who admits she would have jumped out of her skin years ago but wouldn’t be worried today about seeing a “full-blown figure” walking past.
Banged Up… Forever?
Another hotspot is HMP Shepton Mallet, the world’s oldest purpose-built prison, dating from 1625.
“That’s 400 years’ worth of death and misery,” jokes Jenny Bolton, who manages events at the decommissioned jail. In its darkest days, inmate life expectancy was just months. One famous tale is that of the White Lady, a woman sentenced to death for murdering her fiancé. She requested to wear her wedding dress but was found dead in her cell before execution.
A century later, prisoners in one wing reported:
- Smelling perfume
- Waking with pressure on their chest or feeling hands on their throat
- Seeing figures with “fuzzy faces,” likely veiled brides
The Home Office even investigated.
“Men were saying they were waking up in the night,” explains Jenny. “It felt like there was pressure on their chest, or there were hands around their throat.”
The Fear Factor
Kate, Karin, and Jenny are matter-of-fact in describing what they’ve seen, but for others, ghost stories may feel overwhelming.
Mid-Victorian ghost stories—like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—present visitations as redemptive morality tales. But later authors like MR James (1862–1936) introduced darker themes. His short stories, often read aloud to friends on Christmas Eve, lean into folk horror and ironic doom.
“While Dickens deals with the redemption of negative actions, MR James deals with the consequences of them—and the punishment of them through supernatural means,” says Kate.
Karin recalls an experiment at Woodchester Mansion, where she played The Exorcist soundtrack on her laptop before sending visitors out to explore. Nobody would enter the cellar. “If you’re a scaredy cat, you are going to experience something—whether it’s a real experience or not.”
A Kinder Tradition
Kate, who previously worked at Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol and co-hosts its gothic annual Bat Ball, notes a gentler European custom. In parts of Europe, people visit graveyards on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, bringing food, lights, and love to departed friends and family.
“There’s this really beautiful tradition of including the dead within Christmas celebrations,” says Kate. “It’s not overtly paranormal, but it’s a healthy and pleasant way of integrating the dead and cemetery spaces into the festive period. It’s something this country could really do with.”
Documentary Evidence
Bath-based filmmaker John Shackleton remembers his first paranormal experience clearly. While working on the Channel 4 series Château DIY, he stayed in a gîte:
“I was awakened by being bitten on the finger. Then the bedside table started to rock.”
A researcher reported waking at 3am to find her bed off the ground. John has since filmed a pilot series where paranormal researchers visit locations such as:
- Bath Theatrical Costume Hire
- Shepton Mallet Prison
- Walton Castle near Clevedon
In one chilling moment at Shepton Mallet, a trained sniffer dog turned into “a jibbering little puppy” after a door slammed.
📸 @shackletonfilmsltd
