With today being Halloween, the day for ghosts, ghouls and creepy things, it seems right on cue that Waverley Abbey has produced a sighting of its own.

A local photographer claims to have seen the fabled White Witch of Surrey drifting through the abbey ruins near Farnham on Wednesday evening, just as the fog settled across the Wey Valley.

“I was walking with my camera, the air damp and still, when a pale shape shimmered near the archway,” said the photographer.

“It wasn’t mist — it moved, almost gliding, before fading into the shadows. I took a photo. When I checked my camera, the figure was faint but there: a white silhouette, almost human.”

Locals will recognise the tale. They call her Mother Ludlam, the White Witch of Surrey. Her cave lies just a mile from the abbey, near the bubbling spring once known as Ludwell.

Legend says she was a kindly witch, who worked as a healer and lent pots and cauldrons to villagers, until one was stolen.

Some say she still searches for her lost cauldron, which ended up in nearby Frensham Church. Others whisper that her spirit watches over the abbey ruins, where monks once drew water from her spring.

Whether the figure was a ghost, a patch of fog or the result of another type of spirit remains to be seen.

But as the photographer put it: “I can’t say for sure what it was. But I saw her — and I have the photo to prove it.”