Opened in 1795 and in use until 2013, HMP Dorchester was one of England’s most notorious Victorian prisons, where public hangings drew thousands. The most prominent ghost is believed to be Martha Brown, executed in 1856 for murdering her violent husband—her death reportedly witnessed by a young Thomas Hardy, who later weaved it into Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Visitors report hearing a woman sobbing near the execution yard and footsteps pacing cell corridors long after closing. Shadows are seen moving inside empty wings, and cold spots manifest in the former condemned cell, where prisoners spent their last hours. Since closure, the prison has hosted controlled investigations where disembodied voices and activity around the gallows beam consistently rank it among the UK’s most intense institutional hauntings.