This is not what I have witnessed but my elder Sister's. We grew up in an old farm house built in 1765,it was a lovely old building and I loved growing up there. It was known in the local community to be haunted and I always had friends asking if I'd seen any ghosts.
Back in the 1700's there had been a local highway man known as Bocking who had developed a reputation. His antics had come to the attention of government and troops had been sent to apprehend him. The story says he sought a place to hide in the house and was found. He put up a fight on the stairs with swords,was overpowered and taken prisoner and escorted to a nearby place where there stood a large elm tree from which he was hung. That place is still know today as Bockings Elm.
There was also a story of a servant who drowned in the well on the grounds of the farm house which was called carrs farmhouse.
Anyway my sister used to wake up screaming on quite a few occasions,my Father thought she was a bit touched. She would say that the covers of her bed were being pulled off and that it was a girl doing it,the girl even tried to pull her down the stairs one time. Other times a presence whispered her name close to her ear and footsteps going up or down the stairs in the middle of the night when everyone else was in bed. And finally the sound of clashing swords were heard.
Her stories used to scare me as I was only 4 or 5,she was 10 years older than me. I can say though that I never saw or heard anything. Years later a ghost hunter knocked on the door and asked for my sister's experience,he was writing a book and had contacted anyone left alive who had lived in the house.
You can find out about it here.
A List of Essex Ghosts and Mysteries from The Paranormal Database
www.paranormaldatabase.com