IT'S HALLOWEEN on Tuesday. To get you in the mood, here's our top ten local ghosts.

1. Richmond Drummer Boy

In the 18th Century, soldiers at Richmond castle sent a drummer boy into an old brick-lined tunnel they had discovered to see if it led to Easby Abbey. They followed the sound of his drumming above ground until he stopped. Either the tunnel had collapsed and killed him, or he had encountered the sleeping knights of King Arthur’s Round Table who claimed him as one of their own – either way, on a quiet night, you can still hear him drumming beneath the Market Place.

2. Swaledale’s Dog of Doom

Corpse Way follows the river down Swaledale. Bodies were carried along it for burial at Grinton, the dale’s only consecrated churchyard. Some carriers rested overnight at the Punchbowl Inn in Feetham, with the coffin placed in the Dead House out the back. Some journeys were broken at Ivelet Bridge, where there is still a large flat slab called the Coffin Stone, and where the bridge is haunted by a giant, headless dog which is the harbinger of a terrible tragedy.

3. Signor Rino Pepi

Darlington Hippodrome is full of ghosts, but the most regularly sighted is that of its founding impresario, Rino Pepi, in top hat and tails as from the royal box stage right he casts a critical eye on the opening night of every performance. Pepi died in Darlington in 1927 and is buried in Barrow, but dense fog stopped his hearse’s journey over Stainmore, symbolising his perpetual reluctance to leave his theatre town.

4. The Pickled Parson

The parson of Sedgefield died just a week before his tenants were due to come to his house, Ceddesfeld Hall, and pay their annual rent. Wanting the cash, his unscrupulous wife pickled his body in vinegar and propped him up on a chair in an upstairs window as if he were welcoming the tenants. He haunts the hall, which is now a community centre, in protest at his wife’s appalling behaviour.

5. The Punching Porter

The world’s most famous story of a ghost which touched a living human occurred in the 1850s when crossing keeper James Durham was punched by a ghost and bitten by its spooky pet black dog in a cellar at North Road Station in Darlington. It later transpired that the incident happened on the tenth anniversary of the suicide of depressed porter, Thomas Winter, who had killed himself in the station toilet but whose body had been quickly laid out in the cellar lest it scare passengers.

6. Andrew Mills

On January 25, 1683, servant boy Andrew Mills was instructed by the devil to kill the three children of his master, John Brass, at their windmill home in Kirk Merrington. He used an axe to despatch the two youngest, but saved Jane, 18, for whom he had a soft spot. However, the devil appeared to him as “a hideous creature like a fierce wolf with red fiery eyes” and ordered him to return and kill Jane. He did – but the children’s ghosts now flit happily around their windmill as if they were still playing.

7. Edwin and Emma

The Ancient Unicorn in Bowes is haunted by young lovers Roger Wrightson and Martha Railton, whose feuding families forbade their relationship. When Martha, whose family ran the pub, heard the tolling deathbell telling that Roger had died of fever, her heart burst and she dropped down dead on March 15, 1714. Their story was immortalised in the popular Ballad of Edwin and Emma.

8. Lily of Lumley

Sir Ralph Lumley built Lumley Castle, near Chester-le-Street, in 1389, but when he was away fighting, two Catholic priests threw his wife, Lily, down a well to her death in a religious dispute. To cover their tracks, they found an unwell peasant woman and placed her in a local nunnery where she quickly died. The priests told Sir Ralph that this was Lily and he believed them – but Lily is regularly seen at Lumley trying to tell him of their crime.

9. The Gypsy Piper

Aged 70, Jimmy Allan, a talented but high-spirited piper, was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. Following his protestations of death, his sentence was commuted to life to be spent in the Bridewell, or House of Correction, beneath Elvet Bridge in Durham City – the worst cell in the country. He died seven years later on the day before a letter of pardon was received, although, on a quiet night, you can still hear his ghostly pipes.

10. The Merry Monk

Bishop Auckland’s most famous ghost is a monk-like figure who is often seen in his habit near the old Sportsman Inn on the northern side of the Market Place. It is said that in the pub’s ancient cellar there was an illicit brewery connected by a secret tunnel to Auckland Castle. The naughty monk died down there by his own hand when his terrible trade was discovered by a bishop.