Berystede Hotel, England

The Berystede Hotel is a four star luxury hotel near the town of Ascot in the English county of Berkshire. The hotel was built on the site of the 19th century country house of Henry Noailles Widdrington Standish and Helene de Perusse - a turreted Victorian building which burnt down in 1886.

The hotel is today part of the Macdonald chain. It recently completed a £10 million redevelopment and refurbishment programme and is now The Macdonald Berystede Hotel & Spa.

Ascot is, of course, home of the Royal Ascot racecourse and the Berystede is popular with race goers. It also caters for business with a range of conference facilities. For something different you might book one of the "feature rooms" which include turret suites.

The Blue Lady

The Berystede is of interest to students of the weird because during your stay you might see a ghost - namely the Blue Lady who haunts the hotel. She is believed to date from the fire that detroyed the original house in 1886.

The ghost is thought to be Eliza Kleininger. Eliza was a French girl who worked as a maid to Mrs Standish. During the fire she went back into the house in a brave attempt to rescue her mistress's jewelery. Unfortunately she failed to get out of the house and her charred remains were later found in the ruins of the building - still clutching the jewelry box that had cost her life.

Eliza's ghost is siad to have haunted the spot ever since. Some say that she is still looking for her mistress's jewelry, others that she is looking for a way out of a house that no longer exists. Sightings of this ghostly Lady in Blue usually take place near the location where her body was discovered.

For ghost hunters visiting the area on vacation there are other ghosts as well as the Blue Lady of Berystede. At a nearby cottage an apparition walks across the room and through the wall whilst at Sunninghill Park ghostly horses have often been heard though never seen.

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