Gunby Hall Ghost Walk

Gunby Hall, a red-brick house of 1700 near Spilsby, carries one of Lincolnshire's grimmer ghost stories. Tradition holds that Sir William Massingberd discovered his daughter was planning to elope with a postillion in his service. On the night the couple intended to flee, Sir William lay in wait, shot the servant dead, and had the body dragged through the grounds and thrown into the pond — some versions of the story add that, in his rage, he shot his own daughter too.

Word of the killing spread despite efforts to keep it quiet, and locals began to whisper that Gunby was cursed: no male heir of the Massingberd line, it was said, would ever again inherit the house in the direct line — a 'curse' that some later genealogists noted did indeed seem to play out in the family's history.

The path beside the pond where the postillion's body was dumped became known as 'Ghost Walk', and is said to be haunted by his spectre still — pacing the route forever, waiting for a lover who can never return. Now run by the National Trust, Gunby occasionally opens the hall for Halloween events that draw on this and other tales of the house's haunted past.