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In the early morning hours of July 13th, 1974, Maurice Goodenough rushed into the Rochester Police Station in Kent, England. He reported that he’d hit a pedestrian on the A229 while ascending Blue Bell Hill. She’d appeared suddenly in his headlights and, though he’d hit the brakes, it was too late to avoid running into her.

Officers went with Goodenough back to the scene but, though they found the blanket he’d bundled the girl in, were unable to locate the injured girl.

Local media provided an explanation: The girl had to have been a ghost.

This incident was the first to bring widespread attention to the hauntings of Blue Bell Hill.

Digging into the legends, we were quick to discover that the girl that Maurice Goodenough encounters isn’t the only ghost on Blue Bell Hill.

More than fifty recorded sightings that date back to as early as the 1930s tell of  frequent and consistent reports of a wide variety of hauntings.

There are reports of pair of female Vanishing Hitchhikers and a girl seen walking quietly beside the road before disappearing. There’s an old woman dressed in a black tartan shawl carrying  a bundle of sticks or heather, and a girl on a bicycle. There is a male Vanishing Hitchhiker and, of course, other sightings similar to what Maurice Goodenough encountered.

And, what’s more, many of these reported encounters have real people whose real deaths could have contributed to the lore.

On this episode, we take a look at the Many Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill.

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Image: The Maidstone Gazette from Tuesday, November 21, 1974 (Source: The Sun)

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Suggested Reading

• The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill and Other Road Ghosts by Sean Tudor


• The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-Hikers: An Objective Survey of the Vanishing Passenger from Urban Myths to Actual Events by Michael Goss

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Additional Resources

• The Ghost of Blue Bell Hill by Sean Tudor


• The Blue Bell Hill Ghost by Brian Haughton


• Blue Bell Hill Ghost, Kent at Haunted Rooms


• Haunted Kent: The Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill by Ann Carney at Exemplore

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