The 'real' hauntings that inspired this year's festive BBC ghost story

This year's BBC Ghost Story for Christmas is an adaptation of EF Benson's 1912 tale of vampiric horror and haunted sleep, The Room in the Tower.

- Alice Vernon

Dame Joanna Lumley and Tobias Menzies in Mark Gatiss' A Ghost Story For Christmas: The Room in the Tower

(ADORABLE MEDIA/BBC/JOE DUGGAN)

The unnamed narrator begins the story by relating a recurring nightmare he has suffered for 15 years. In the dream, he has been invited to the mansion of the Stone family. The dream begins pleasantly, with card games, cigarettes and light conversation. But it always takes a turn when the family's fearsome matriarch, Mrs Stone, tells the narrator that he'll now be shown to his room for the night - the titular room in the tower.

Upon entering the room, he is overwhelmed with abject horror, and wakes up before he sees the object of his fear.

While visiting a friend one stormy summer's day, the narrator finds himself at the very home he saw at least once a month in his dreams. Sure enough, he's led to the room in the tower, where he finds a hideous portrait of the demonic Mrs Stone.

The portrait is removed from the room at his request, but leaves curious bloodstains on the narrator and his friend's hands. During the night, however, the narrator's sleep is once again disturbed by the nightmare made manifest.