READING has been placed 11th in a list of the spookiest towns.

With Halloween approaching, the experts at OnlineMortgageAdvisor.co.uk were curious to find out which are the creepiest towns in the UK.

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Taking into consideration seven factors: the number of cemeteries; paranormal sightings; abandoned homes; spooky roads; safety at night; level of crime and annual sunshine, they have determined which towns are the scariest using 'spook points' - and Reading isn't too far down the list.

According to the list, Reading has the most abandoned houses in the UK.

From dusty furniture to spider webs and poltergeists in the basement, there is something very eerie about abandoned houses.

The research can reveal that the places with the highest abandoned homes/population ratio, hence garnering the most points (200), are Reading, Bristol, Cambridge, Nottingham and Cardiff.

At the other end of the scale are the towns/cities with the fewest abandoned homes/population (gathering only 20 points): Newry, Bradford, Armagh, Aberdeen and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Overall, Reading scored 840 spook points, and was deemed scarier than Leeds, Sheffield, Northampton, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Dundee, Peterborough and Derby.

Reading Chronicle:

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In order to get the most accurate data, the numbers for each spooky criteria were divided by the total population for each location.

Despite its spookiness, Reading was named among the towns with the most annual sunshine, with 1,522.9 hours of annual sunshine.

The darkest places in the UK are Glasgow (1203.1 hours of annual sunshine), Manchester (1212.4 hours), Armagh (1245.5 hours), Belfast (1246.9 hours) and Newry (1255.8 hours).