IF GHOSTS and Christmas go together, perhaps we can blame Charles Dickens and his classic, "A Christmas Carol".

But as the supernatural and the season seem to walk hand in hand, through the darkest time of the year, then perhaps we can be forgiven for looking at some of Ledbury's most haunted spots, where a figure in a long robe is unlikely to be Santa Claus on his regular rounds.

Speaking of shadowy figures, Cabbage Lane, the narrow and historic footpath that links Worcester Road with the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, is a likely place to encounter such a spirit, if local accounts are to be believed.

Several years ago, Ledbury Reporter Gary Bills-Geddes heard a spine-tingling account from an elderly Ledbury resident, concerning how the gentleman's mother, while walking down the lane one wintry dusk, saw a tall and shadowy shape cross her path, and then cross it again.

She had a dog with her, on a lead; but the dog was so terrified it broke the lead and ran home. The lady arrived back twenty minutes later, pale and shaken. She later discovered, so the story goes, that a neighbour had suffered a similar ghostly experience in Cabbage Lane.

This encounter happened around the 1920s, but the Cabbage Lane ghost could be far older than that, as the path probably existed at the time of the Civil War Battle of Ledbury, which took place in 1645.

It may have been the scene of armed clashes then. The churchyard certainly was, as musket ball holes in an ancient church door reveal.

Some visitors to The Talbot Hotel in New Street have noted strange happenings, and history even provides a reason for the spectre. A serving girl was shot accidentally in the Panelled Room, during a Civil War skirmish between Cavaliers and Roundheads. This particular clash may or may not have been during the Battle of Ledbury itself.

It is her spirit that is still reported.

Around 2001, Maria, the wife of landlord Andy Ward was in the bar around midnight when all the customers had gone home, and she caught sight of a ghost, "walking down the corridor where the toilets are."

Mrs Ward felt "the sense of cold" and saw a dark-haired women in a white shirt, the same figure which has been seen in other parts of the building over the years, most notably in room two.

Here, visitors have sometimes been disturbed by the feeling of "something" with them. On occasions, the ghost has been seen, and has even made her presence known by sitting on the edge of the bed.

One visitor reported strange dreams of a woman's face continually emerging from the darkness, then disappearing.

Refurbishments at Talbot, at the beginning of this century, seemed to stir up the spirits.

Mr Ward reported, at the time, that when a fireplace in the Elizabethan panelled room was unblocked, doors were slammed shut and opened throughout the building, and there were blasts of icy air.

The Feathers Hotel is also haunted by a maid. In February 1999, the owner David Elliston told the Reporter of an incident that left the night porter "white-faced and shaken".

The ghost in this case is of a young girl who is believed to have been murdered in what was once the servants' quarters, some 200 years ago.

The spectre was seen walking down the stairs to the ground floor. She was dressed in a billowing white shift and eventually made her way to the locked door of the bar.

When the night porter, believing her to be a guest, asked if she "needed a drink", she spun round, stared at him and vanished.

Mr Elliston continued: "At that moment, all the sprinklers for the flower displays outside came on, and every toilet in the hotel flushed itself."

In addition, sounds of horses have occasionally been heard in the alley that runs alongside the historic  hotel, and which would once have been the way to the stables, in the days of the stagecoach.

Other Ledbury hauntings are occasional and less demonstrative, as though they are only mere echoes from a long-forgotten past.

The late Pip Powell, of Powell Cycles in The Homend, recalled that the neighbouring Horse Shoe Inn had its share of unexplained noises in the 1970s and 1980s. His own property too had not escaped a haunting.

He told the Reporter: "I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, back in the 1930s. There was definitely shuffling, hesitation, then someone turning back."

Unexplained footsteps were also heard when Mr Powell's daughter was a child, in the 1960s.

He said: "We thought she was sleepwalking upstairs. There was nothing ever frightening about it. But my daughter was always aware of a presence outside the bathroom door."

A phantom coach and horses has also been reported in the Homend, outside the Horse Shoe Inn. One witness described it, so the account goes, as being completely transparent.

Ledbury, in fact, seems to be blessed with phantom coaches.

There have been reports that Chances Pitch, on the Worcester Road, near Ledbury, is haunted by such an apparition.

The story goes that the lonely, undulating stretch was the scene of an accident, probably in early Victorian times, one dark winter's night.

But it seems impossible to find anyone who has actually encountered this particular visitation.

Perhaps that is to be expected, - with most, but not all, reputed hauntings.