Real Places Behind Famously Frightening Stories

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Ponden Hall and Top Withens, England

Brontë probably had two places in mind when she imagined Wuthering Heights, the haunted house in Yorkshire at the center of her only novel. The Heights’ remote, windswept location could have been that of Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse that overlooks the moors south of her hometown of Haworth. The structure itself could have been based on Ponden Hall, a 19th-century manor house also near Haworth; the single-paned window on the second floor may well have been the one that Catherine Linton’s ghost tried to climb through one wild, snowy night. (Ponden’s owners, Stephen Brown and Julie Akhurst, do offer tours to small groups.)

"The Flying Dutchman"
Cape of Good Hope, South Africa

The story of a ship called the Flying Dutchman doomed to sail the seas for eternity is a trusty old chestnut much loved in the arts. Richard Wagner turned it into an opera, Washington Irving wrote about it, American artist Albert Pinkham Ryder created a moody portrait of it, and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” introduced modern audiences to the legend.

Many believe the original vessel was sailing between Holland and the Dutch East Indies in the 17th century. As it approached the Cape of Good Hope near the tip of Africa, a fierce storm arose. The captain, perhaps eager to get the trip over with, vowed to round the treacherous coastline even if it took him until doomsday.

Those who want to see the results of his folly can stand watch from the Cape, now part of South Africa’s breathtakingly gorgeous Table Rock National Park.

Dracula, Bram Stoker
Poenari Castle, Romania

The crumbling fortress perched on a cliff above the Arges River was one of several used by Vlad Dracula, ruler of southern Romania in the 15th century and the man behind Bram Stoker’s immortal (pardon the pun) vampire tale. The castle was in ruins when Dracula came to power. To restore it, the legend goes, he forced several hundred prisoners to ferry bricks and stones up the cliff along a human assembly line.
Poenari (poh-yeh-NAR) is open to anyone able to ascend the more than 1,400 steps that lead to the summit. Once there, spectacular views of the Carpathian Mountains unfold from the battlements--the same ones that Dracula’s wife jumped from in 1462 as she chose death over being captured by the Turkish army encamped below.
The castle Stoker described in his breakout 1897 novel was probably a composite of three. Of those, Poenari was the only one the real Dracula inhabited. He was imprisoned briefly in the second one, Bran Castle, also in Romania. And the third one is Slain’s Castle in Scotland; Stoker stayed near Slain’s for several years and reportedly was inspired by the grim Gothic building on the rocky east coast. It is in ruins now, while Bran is a museum.

"An Apparition in the Engineers' Castle," in The Sealed Angel, Nikolai Leskov
Mikhailovsky Castle, St. Petersburg, Russia

“Buildings have reputations just as people do,” Leskov wrote in 1882. To prove his point, the Russian writer set his ghost story in one of St. Petersburg’s most infamous landmarks: Mikhailovsky (St. Michael’s) Castle. The Italian Renaissance-style castle was built between 1796 and 1801 for Emperor Paul I, a paranoid fellow who believed he’d be safe inside such a fortress from his enemies. But 40 days after he moved in, Paul was killed in his bedroom--the victim of a plot hatched by his own son.
Mikhailovsky gradually became a school for military engineers, who spun yarns about ghostly goings-on in the castle (such as the one Leskov recounted of a shrouded figure whose nocturnal appearances scared several students). Today, the castle is part of the Russian Museum.

Check them all at the Smithsonian Magazine