'Ghosts of Oxford University': Headless priests, executed kings and ghostly monks

A haunted library, a headless ghost wandering around, robed figures, a ghost walking up and down a winding staircase – such stories catch the imagination of every student in colleges and hostels. After all, what good are decades-old buildings if there are no spine-chilling stories of its haunted premises! 

But when those stories come from the storied corridors of Oxford University, the excitement jumps a notch up. The University of Oxford, in a LinkedIn post, listed some of its “favourite” ghost stories from the campus. 

The university said that there is the legend of a headless archbishop who was executed for treason and now just roams about the library kicking his detached head! One can hear him walking around in the library, making a thump sound and kicking his head along the corridor.

Then there was an English academic who was captured and imprisoned for his attempts to follow James II to France. Now his “solemn spirit” haunts Staircase VIII.

A Royalist Colonel now haunts the site where he was executed for treason and the college library, while a headless monk wanders the lawn at Magdalen College. In fact, a student said that her bedroom was invaded by several ghostly monks who were singing loudly. 

Not only the clergy and the army, even King Charles I who was executed in 1649 has apparently been sighted in the Christ Church and the Bodleian Libraries. White robed figures have been spotted in Wadham College that was built on the site of an Augustinian friary. 

The university said that with its 900 years of history, there have been many ghost stories from over the centuries, and these are just a handful of them.

Oxford posted this on the day of Halloween that is celebrated worldwide to remember the dead and departed.

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