Knaresborough

Knaresborough

TYPEHub Page — Town

REGIONNorth Yorkshire, England

FIRST REPORT1500s (Mother Shipton)

STATUSActive

Knaresborough is a historic market town in North Yorkshire, England, on the River Nidd, best known on The Vault as the birthplace of England's legendary prophetess, Mother Shipton, and home to the Mother Shipton Inn.

Mother Shipton's Cave

According to tradition, Ursula Southeil — later known as Mother Shipton — was born around 1488 in a cave on the banks of the River Nidd, reportedly during a violent thunderstorm, to a fifteen-year-old mother named Agatha. Ursula grew into a noted local herbalist and, later, a prophetess credited with predicting events including the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War, and the Great Fire of London — though her most famous supposed prediction, that the world would end in 1881, was later exposed as a 19th-century hoax invented after her death. She died in 1561, aged 73.

The cave, alongside an adjoining "Petrifying Well" whose high mineral content calcifies objects left in its flow, has operated as a paid tourist attraction since 1630, making it England's oldest such attraction still in operation.

Knaresborough Castle

On 27 June 2003, a photographer at Knaresborough Castle's dungeon captured an image showing a mist apparently forming the shape of a large figure standing over another, its arm raised as if to strike — two further photographs taken moments later at the same spot showed no trace of the mist.

Knaresborough Forest

A figure dressed in white clothing has been reported in the forest surrounding the town since at least the 19th century.

The Mother Shipton Inn

The town's best-documented individual haunted location is the Mother Shipton Inn itself, a 17th-century inn named after the prophetess, with its own long-reported history of paranormal activity — see the full Mother Shipton Inn page for details.

External links

• Mother Shipton's Cave — official site
• Paranormal Database — North Yorkshire