Woman sees female 'ghost' on picture taken of Tynemouth Priory

A visitor to Tynemouth Priory was stunned to spot a ghostly figure in one of the photographs she took of the graveyard.
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Mandy Steel, 45, was visiting the coast for the day with her two grown-up children and decided to take some snaps of the stunning ruins.

But it wasn’t until she got home and was looking through her pictures, which she took with a camera, that she saw what looked like a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothing behind a family with a pushchair.

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Ms Steel, a cleaner from Pallion in Sunderland, claims she did not see the woman when she took the photos. And weirdly, a separate set of identical photos, taken by her daughter on her mobile phone, does not show the ghostly apparition.

Close up: A magnified picture of the person spotted walking behind the family. She appears to be in old-fashioned clothes, wearing a hat and carrying a bag.Close up: A magnified picture of the person spotted walking behind the family. She appears to be in old-fashioned clothes, wearing a hat and carrying a bag.
Close up: A magnified picture of the person spotted walking behind the family. She appears to be in old-fashioned clothes, wearing a hat and carrying a bag.

She said: “I have contacted the priory and the National Trust to try and find out more information, but they weren’t any help.

"It’s really odd because my daughter was also taking photos of the same place at the same time, but her phone didn’t pick anything up.

"I checked my full lot of photos, to see if anyone was dressed like that, but no one was wearing a hat. Plus, everyone was wearing summer clothes. I just don’t know who or what this was.”

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Ms Steel took the picture at around 1pm on Saturday, August 13 and was looking towards South Shields beach the time.

Picture one: The graveyard and a family with a pushchair can just be seen in the background.Picture one: The graveyard and a family with a pushchair can just be seen in the background.
Picture one: The graveyard and a family with a pushchair can just be seen in the background.

There had been some mist around but she says visibility was good, and the day was mainly sunny.

In February last year, Newcastle paranormal investigator Kayleigh Woods claimed to have photographed a ghost at the Benedictine priory.

She also took her picture with a camera, rather than a mobile phone, and in the corner of the shot, close to the ruins, appeared to be a black shadow in the shape of a person.

She insisted no one was in the area at the time of the picture and returned 15 minutes later to take the same image in the same spot, but the shadow had vanished.