Oxfordshire regularly tops the charts as one of the UK’s most haunted counties.

As the county gears up for Halloween tonight, we take a look at the county’s most haunted spots, from the legend of the Rollright Stones to the lesser known ‘curse of the Kassam Stadium’.

According to folklore the stones, near Chipping Norton, are the petrified bodies of a king and his knights who tried to take over England.

The knights were stopped in their tracks by a witch called Mother Shipton who turned them to stone where they stood.

The Bear Hotel in Woodstock is also rumoured to be haunted.

The 13th century hotel, which was a hideaway for on/off lovers Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton during the 1970s, is said to have a female ghost who haunts room 16, turning lights on and off and talking.

Another of the county’s most haunted spots is Minster Lovell where the ghost of Viscount Francis Lovell, who died during the reign of Henry VII, is said to roam the ruins of the old hall.

Ted Bown, of Ridgefield Road, Oxford, said many people believed the old Social Club at the Churchill Hospital, in Headington, was also haunted after “strange noises” were regularly heard.

A woman in a white veil is believed to stalk the stairwells of the Oxford Playhouse, and St Sepulchre’s churchyard, in Walton Street, is said to be populated with the ghosts of former deans and porters of Oxford University.

Oxford is also home to a few curses, some dating back hundreds of years and some more recent.

An ancient curse is believed to have been cast on Oxford Castle in 1577 by Roman Catholic bookbinder Roland Jenks.

Jenks was convicted of supporting the Pope and sentenced to be nailed by the ears to a pillory.

Furious, he cursed the court and within days, two judges, the coroner and many jurors were dead from jail fever, typhus, which killed 300 people.

In 2001, the then Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev Richard Harries, was called to Oxford United's Kassam Stadium at Minchery Farm to conduct an exorcism after the club became convinced a gipsy curse had been placed on the site.

Paranormal investigator Phil Measey, from Bicester, said many of the hot-spots were familiar to him. He said: “My team and I have done many investigations throu-ghout the county.

“There is definitely something very nasty going on at Minster Lovell, and at the Rollright Stones there is a strange presence there too. A recent investigation at the stones revealed some very strange things, shadows and noises.

“We also noticed that no matter how many times you count the stones, you never get the same number.”

He added: “ It is a busy time of year for us at the moment, but we thrive on it, to be honest.”