From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties,

And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

Anon

I had been promising myself a trip on the Ghost Trail for as long as it has been running, so, when an opportunity arose last week, I threw caution to the wind and joined the 80 or more eager ghost hunters outside York City Art Gallery.

Our guide for the evening was Nathaniel Grind. His 'assistant' was a headless walking stick he called Jessica.

The party included Americans, Antipodeans, Europeans and Asians, Arabs, and the ubiquitous Japanese, laden with cameras and video recorders. Hoping, I suppose, to snap a playful poltergeist, or film a ghostly apparition, or even a mass of floating ectoplasm.

The composition of our cosmopolitan group supported my belief that we in Britain do not have a monopoly on the presence or interest in ghosts. Phantoms are as popular as burger bars the world over, and for those prone to queasy stomachs, they can be just as disturbing.

Our first call was beneath the walls of the Minster. To some of those gathered, this ancient cathedral seemed a likely place to evoke the ghosts of many generations of artisans and labourers, who had spent almost their entire lives building something they would never see completed.

Nathaniel told us of the 13th-century dog that never stopped barking. Nothing too disturbing about that, for most of us have experienced such torment, but for a dog to bark continually for eight centuries, would tax anyone's patience, and would surely justify a call to the city council's dog warden.

He pointed out the "rectangular window" of an Elizabethan style house, through which peered the tortured face of a perpetually crying baby girl, who was dying from one of the diseases which beset York, and other cities, in the middle ages and later.

Outside Treasurer's House, Nathaniel related the much-publicised account of apprentice plumber Harry Martindale's 1954 sighting of a bedraggled band of Roman soldiers, led by an officer on horseback. The ghostly Roman troops, which, it was later believed, were the remnants of the 9th Legion that disappeared without trace during their campaign against the revolting Picts and Scots, marched through the cellar wall, where young Harry was working. Their awesome sight gave wings to his feet as he sped, eyes bulging and in a cold sweat, from the house.

Knowing Harry when he was a policeman, I don't doubt his word, but it is strange that although seen on previous occasions, by all accounts they've never been seen since. But with all the Italian restaurants that have been opening up in York in recent years, it does, in an eerie sort of way, suggest to me that there might be a possible connection.

Bedern Chapel, thought to have once been a bordello - an early version of park and ride - provided our wickedly humorous leader with a macabre anecdote about "the murderous Mr Pym", an early occupant, who took young children into care for a shilling. Despite his growing intake of orphans and unwanted children, the total number of his charges lessened while his personal fortune grew. A chilling thought, which made me realise that present-day social services' childcare is not anywhere near as bad as it is sometimes labelled.

Our final stop in Shambles, to hear the tale of Sir Thomas Percy's barbarous execution, left me quite peckish after my evening walk, so I slipped away to take supper with the ghost of Guy Fawkes.