Hauntings

The three ghosts of Hotham Park

Hotham Park, Bognor Regis

Hotham Park's three quite distinct reported figures, a domestic scene of a woman, child and dogs, a glowing crinoline-clad woman, and a shadowy headless man, give the park an unusually varied ghostly population for a single, relatively contained public green space, each figure differing markedly enough in appearance and character that they read as genuinely separate traditions rather than variant descriptions of the same underlying haunting.

The crinoline-wearing woman's bluish glow is a specific and visually distinctive detail among this register's many white, grey and other coloured ladies, most of whom are described in terms of dress colour alone rather than any accompanying luminous quality, giving her account an unusual level of specific visual detail even without any corroborating name or date having been traced in the sources consulted for this entry.

The headless man motif is a long established and widely recorded type within English ghost lore, traditionally associated with violent death by beheading, whether judicial execution, battlefield injury, or accident, though no specific incident or identity has been proposed for Hotham Park's own version. No dates, named witnesses, or originating historical events have been traced for any of the three figures, and they are recorded here collectively as a distinctive but honestly thin cluster of local ghost lore attached to one of Bognor Regis's principal public parks.

Hotham Park is a public park with open access during daylight hours.
Evidence
Single witness account
Access
Open ground
Location
50.785, -0.675 (Sited to the building or field)

Sources: Love Bognor Regis, "Spooky Stories of Bognor Regis and Beyond" [other]

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