Bannister Doll

The Bannister Doll is a scary true ghost story about a teenage girl who was whipped to death by her father. It happened in Preston in Lancashire, England in the 19th Century.

There was a teenage girl named Dorothy Bannister who lived with her father in an old mansion called Bannister Hall in the town of Preston in Lancashire, England. Her nickname was Dolly and the local people called her “The Bannister Doll”.

Dolly was a very attractive girl and she got a lot of attention from young men. Most of the boys in the town were chasing after her.

One day, Dolly went to her father and nervously told him she had something to confess. She was pregnant. When her father heard this, he flew into a violent rage. Seething with anger, he dragged the teenage girl out to the garden and chained her to a stone. Then, he whipped her to death for embarrassing her family.

Years later, the stone where Dolly had been so brutally murdered was still standing and mothers would take their young daughters to see it as a warning of what could happen if they got pregnant. None of the girls in town wanted to end up like The Bannister Doll.

Dolly’s body was buried in the grounds of The Holy Trinity Church at Preston, but the story doesn’t end there.

Not long after The Bannister Doll’s death, the corpse of a young man was found lying in the centre of Preston. His skull had been smashed to smithereens and his ribcage had been beaten to a pulp. The authorities were mystified as to how he’d met his end.

Two weeks later the dead body of a second young man was discovered in similar circumstances. When a third young man was found dead, rumors began to spread around the town like wildfire. They said that the ghost of Dolly Bannister had returned from the grave to wreak vengeance on all young men for the way her father had so cruelly murdered her.

Some people claimed that they had seen the ghost of a young girl in chains floating up Snow Hill at dusk. The sight of her terrified anyone who caught a glimpse of her. It was said that if you heard the chains rattling of a dark night, your days were numbered.

After Dolly’s father died, a new family moved into the house, but they didn’t stay long. The ghost of The Bannister Doll appeared to them and harassed them for two nights before they left the house, never to return. Another family moved in, but they only managed to stick it out for three nights before they fled in terror.

The Bannister Doll is still occasionally seen in Preston and those who have seen her report feeling an aura of tremendous fear and chilling malevolence, a stark contrast to the shy and mild young woman she was in life.