GHOULISH apparitions and spooky spectres are being put under the spotlight at a York tourist attraction.

English Heritage is investigating reports from staff and visitors to Clifford's Tower about strange sightings, presences and ghostly footsteps last night.

It is looking into claims that the site could be haunted by those killed in the massacre of the Norman garrison of York Castle during an uprising in 1069, the infamous Jewish massacre of 1190 or the victims of the Black Death of 1349.

Other potential ghosts at the site include Robert De Clifford who was hanged at the tower after the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, Lambert Simnel who was killed for impersonating a nobleman in 1489 or Dick Turpin who was held in the cells of York Castle before his execution on Knavesmire.

Objectors to the development of the Clifford's Tower area said they expected the spirits haunting the tower to make themselves known if any development was approved in the future.

Stuart Wilson, of the Castle Area Campaign Group, said: "The ghost hunter might well find that some of these ancient spirits from the Castle area's troubled past have been roused from their eternal rest by the threat of a shopping mall being built on the very soil where their blood was shed."

Updated: 09:54 Saturday, November 01, 2003