County where the legions still march and the spooks live on

Wind back, for example, to 1926 and the case of the Brierley Housing Estate hauntings in Bradford. After several women reported a mysterious presence as they walked home late at night, the rumour mill began to turn.

Before long stories began to circulate the estate, suggesting the Victorian bogeyman known as Spring-Heeled Jack had moved north from his usual London haunt to prey on the city’s lonely women.

The descriptions of the figure, which many said looked like a man wearing a sheet, suggested a much less ghostly explanation and the sightings stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

However, not all of Yorkshire’s mysterious tales can be so easily explained.

One morning in 1953 apprentice plumber Harry Martindale was installing a new central heating system in the cellars of York’s Treasurer’s House when he heard the distant sound of a horn.

As the horn grew louder, suddenly a cart horse, ridden by a dishevelled Roman soldier, emerged through a brick wall. More soldiers, dressed in green tunics and plumed helmets followed and according to Harry’s account at the time they appeared to be walking on their knees, their lower legs nowhere to be seen.

However, as the soldiers moved to a recently excavated area it became apparent they were in fact walking on an old Roman road, known as the Via Decumana, which had been buried 15in below the surface.

When a bewildered Harry scrambled upstairs to safety, the building’s curator took one look at the ashen-faced workman and said, without batting an eyelid: “You’ve seen the Roman soldiers, haven’t you?”

It turned out that there had been a number of previous sightings, but in a city where every other building seems to have a ghostly inhabitant it takes a special something to attract much more than a polite shrug.

And it’s not just York that appears to be awash with the spirits of grey ladies and headless noblemen. Leeds Town Hall is reportedly haunted by the ghost of legendary outlaw Charlie Peace, executed in the city in 1879; Hull’s Prospect shopping centre, built on the site of city’s Royal Infirmary, is said to receive occasional visits from the ghosts of long dead patients and Wakefield Theatre Royal is believed to have its very own phantom of the opera.

In fact, according to a recent report, the number of ghostly sightings are on the up and Yorkshire appears to be the country’s hotspot for unexplained phenomena.

The Demonic Britain study claimed the number of sightings today are as widespread as they were in medieval times and Yorkshire, which topped the report’s league table, appears to be a magnet for supernatural happenings.

Cases documented over the previous 25 years included a hideous shadow-like hell-hound with no discernible facial features which collided with a car on the A684 between Northallerton and Leeming Bar and, should filmmakers be seeking inspiration, they could do worse than head to Filey.

It was there, just off the coast, that witnesses reported what the study excitedly described as sea-going water demon with a long neck, vast serpentine body and glowing eyes.

Forget the Loch Ness Monster, now that does have the ring of a Hollywood blockbuster about it.

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