Lady Ursula’s Ghost Walk at Madingley Hall on Christmas Eve

Every year on Christmas Eve, the ghost of Lady Ursula is seen walking from Madingley Hall in Cambridge, unable to move on in the afterlife because of her son’s actions.

And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.
– From Rupert Brooke, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

England’s dark and mysterious past, full of brooding castles and unsettled spirits, makes it a place of fascination come the holiday season. Curious tales of Christmas hauntings at old castles and lordly homes throughout England have been around for generations, with local ghost stories passed through generations. Join us as we explore the mysteries behind these tales of longstanding hauntings by ghosts in England during Christmastime!

In Cambridge, England, there is a big conference center. It used to be the Tudor Madingley Hall, a grand estate owned by the Hynde family and built by John Hyde in the 1540s.

Madingley Hall on Christmas Eve

Cambridge is a notoriously haunted place with its old history and a place where a lot of things happened. The university is said to be one of the more haunted universities in the world. Cambridge University took over the building known as The Shire Manor of Madingley they started talking about sightings of a ghost in the dead of the winter nights.

Ghost Haunting the Madingley Hall Inside of the Tudor manor it is said to be heard an eerie music playing from nowhere and a group of women has been seen wandering around the grounds of the hall. Who are they? Some say that it is from Victorian times because of their clothing. There is also a ghost that makes her annual appearance we do know the name and history of.

Every year on Christmas Eve, the ghost of Lady Ursula is seen walking from Madingley Hall in Cambridge, unable to move on in the afterlife because of her son’s actions. — **Madingley Hall:** It is said that the hall is haunted by ghostly music, women in Victorian clothing and every Christmas Eve, there is a ghost that walk from the hall to the town every year.//Source: Bob Jones / Madingley Hall / CC BY-SA 2.0

Every Christmas Eve there is a ghost that walks between the hall and the location where there once was a church in Histon. She has been walking for many years now, and today she has to cross a motorway to get there. But still, every Christmas she haunts the place in anger for what her son ended up doing to her beloved church.

Ghost of Lady Ursula Hynde

During Queen Elizabeth I reign, Sir Francis Hynde was an MP and he did several expanding of his hall that he took over from his father. Among other things, he demolished a nearby church in the nearby village of Histon that would be the building materials for his own home.

This time was a religious turnover in England as they turned from the Catholic church and several of the monasteries and churches were stripped from their wealth, and even the stone and timber they were built in wasn’t safe anymore. This was something that upset many of the English people still catholic at heart, and Sir Francis Hynde’s mother was one of those.

He demolished the church almost 40 years after the death of his mother, Lady Ursula. Sir Francis Hynde apparently had a deep hatred for the religious institution, unlike his mother, a devoted catholic to her death in 1555, and beyond if we are to believe the legend.

The Ghost Walk on Christmas Eve

According to the legend, her spirit got angered by the demolition of the church that were used to expand her sons personal mansion and she has haunted the Madingley Hall ever since

People that claim to have seen her, say she is walking, wringing her hands in anguish almost in prayer and sobbing uncontrollably, heartbroken over her son’s desecrations of the church and opposition to her religion.