One of Doddington’s several reported ghosts is that of a young woman. She is said to jump from the roof of this late sixteenth-century stately home (which can be visited), screaming as she falls. Michael Wray includes a version of this in 13 Ghost Stories from Lincolnshire (2003), and it is also discussed by David Brandon in Haunted Lincoln (2009), and Camilla Zajac in Lincolnshire Ghost Stories (2017). It is said that she is escaping the unwanted advances of a squire, or of the proprietor.

Lots of stately homes are reported to have ghosts who jump fatally from a window or the roof, of course – a trope picked up on in the recent BBC sitcom Ghosts (2019-23).

Doddington Hall also usually displays several gruesome items relating to the gibbeting of the murderer Tom Otter in 1806. Legends about Otter abound, and are discussed under their own entry.

Words by RORY WATERMAN