Haunted Halifax and District E-Book

Kai Roberts

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 175

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Nestled amidst the windswept moorlands of the South Pennines, Halifax has always had a wild reputation: 'From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord deliver us' ran the 'Beggars' Litany'. But was it just a grisly fate at the hands of the Halifax Gibbet, England's last guillotine, that they feared? From historical boggarts to modern poltergeists, the region teems with intruders from beyond the veil: they stalk the gritstone crags and the austere chapels, the tumbledown mills and the ancient taverns. Haunted Halifax & District explores the manifestations and territory of these unquiet spirits, all in the light of the area's colourful history and wider folkloric context. Including such highlights as the spectre of Emily Brontë and a headless coachman with two two headless horses, it will intrigue visitors and residents alike.

Leseprobe

To Katie

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

one Halifax Town Centre

two North Halifax

three Shibden Dale

four The Lower Calder Valley

five The Ryburn Valley

six Luddenden Dean, Mytholmroyd & Cragg Vale

seven The Upper Calder Valley

Bibliography

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THANKS to Cate Ludlow, Naomi Reynolds, Maggie Owens, John Billinglsey, Andy Roberts, Helen Roberts, Phil Roper, Patrick Green, Andy Owens, Stephen Wade, Paul Weatherhead, T. Sutton, Anthea Smith, Jill Kendall, June Kendall, Chelsea Bushby, Steven Robertshaw, Michael Tyler, Malcolm Bull, Carrie Hellyer, Lesley Tudor, Ethel Aked, Ben Marshall, Steven Beasley, Hannah-Rose Little, Helen Burns, Barry Clarke, Christine McOwen, Ann Haigh, Ian Fell, Carol McCambridge, Matt Clay, Tony Nicholson, Jodie Michele, Penny Fell, Brian Wardell, Shaun Parkinson, Anne Marie Tait and the staff of Halifax Central Library Reference Department.

Unless otherwise credited, illustrations are from the author’s collection.

1

HALIFAX TOWN CENTRE

Ghosts of the Halifax Gibbet

In 1622, the poet John Taylor composed ‘The Beggars’ Litany’ and forever preserved the roguish wisdom, ‘From Hell, Hull and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us’. In the seventeenth century such miscreants were afraid of Hull on account of its notorious gaol, but Halifax held a worse terror still – the Gibbet Law. By this statute, anybody caught stealing goods worth more than 131/2d was condemned to death by decapitation by guillotine: a punishment which had long since been discontinued for such petty crimes elsewhere in the country.

The Gibbet Law stipulated that to condemn a felon to death, the Bailiff of Sowerbyshire must convene a jury of sixteen men to determine the guilt of the defendant. Such tribunals were typically held in Moot Hall near the parish church. If convicted, the prisoner would be held for three days in the stocks before being led to the gibbet. Originally, the device stood closer to the town centre, on Cow Green at the bottom of Gibbet Street, and was only moved further up the hill in 1645.

Moot Hall was a timber-framed building erected around 1274 and later cased in stone. Until its demolition in June 1957, it was with this building that ghosts of the Gibbet’s victims were most associated, rather than the site of the machine itself. Local historian, F.A. Leyland, wrote in 1852: ‘There are people living who remember, in their childhood, old men saying [how] in times past many [convicted criminals] had been conducted from its portals to the scaffold and that in the long winter nights the misty forms of men without heads might been seen gliding through its gloomy precincts.’

A replica erected on Gibbet Street in 1974. (Philip Roper)

A plaque marking the site of Moot Hall.

By the twentieth century, Moot Hall was known by the name ‘Jackson’s Court’ – supposedly after a fearsome judge who’d sent many men to the gibbet during his reign of terror and, rather bizarrely, kept a vicious pet weasel. The ghosts of Jackson and his companion were rumoured to haunt the vicinity of Moot Hall, but as their historical existence is entirely apocryphal, such traditions should be treated with caution.

Another apparition associated with the Gibbet Law was produced by one of the statute’s more idiosyncratic provisions. Any prisoner on the scaffold who could release themselves from their bonds before the axe fell and make it across the boundary of Halifax township was a free man – as long as he never returned. As the northern perimeter of Halifax was marked by the Hebble Brook, only 500 yards or so from the gibbet’s position, the feat was not impossible and history records that at least two men managed it.

The first man to escape from the gibbet was known simply as Dinnis and the chronological details of his escape are vague. Much more is known about the second – a robber called John Lacey, who evaded the blade in 1617. Lacey was foolish enough to return to Halifax several years later and his exploits had not been forgotten in the town. He was quickly recaptured and the gibbet finally claimed his head on 29 January 1623.

Since 1971, the achievement of Lacey and Dinnis has been commemorated by a pub on Pellon Lane known as The Running Man. It is a utilitarian modern structure and the building it replaced was no older than the nineteenth century; nonetheless, the headless ghost of John Lacey is rumoured to have been seen in the establishment. Sadly, details of the sighting are scarce and it may just be a rumour legend inspired by the name of the pub, or even deliberately fabricated by the owners to add further colour.

The sign of The Running Man. (Philip Roper)

The Minster Church of St John the Baptist, Halifax

The parish of Halifax was formerly the largest and richest in England. Although some vestiges of the original twelfth-century church remain within the fabric, the building seen today was mostly constructed between 1437 and 1449; whilst like many medieval churches, Halifax Minster was extensively restored during the Victorian era. The work was undertaken in 1878 on the instructions of Revd Francis Pigou, who described the church as ‘dilapidated, dusty, foul, strewn with human remains, and no better than a charnel house’.

Pigou’s account is scarcely surprising. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, there seems to have been scant respect for burials in the churchyard; many tombstones were stolen for use in the construction of nearby houses and in the 1770s grave robbing was so rife that even the sexton is rumoured to have been involved. There were also a number of clandestine inhumations in this period, given to those refused official burial in consecrated ground.

One such instance occurred following the death of Nan Beverley in 1796; a hawker and prostitute who expired following a drinking binge at her cellar-dwelling in Woolshops. The vicar, Revd Henry William Coulthurst, and sexton, Joseph Binns, were adamant that a fallen woman could not be buried in the churchyard and left her to be interred beside the highway. However, at 4 a.m. the following morning, residents of nearby houses were disturbed by the sound of her family surreptitiously digging a grave for the unfortunate Nan Beverley at the bottom of the churchyard.

The Halifax coat of arms featuring the head of St John the Baptist.

The Minster of St John the Baptist.

An apotropaic stone head carved on Halifax Minster.

Popular superstition at this time often regarded the spirits of those buried without proper religious ceremony as prime candidates for post-mortem return and as a local writer later noted, ‘For many years the children were afraid to stay out late at night lest they should see Nan Beverley, the subject of an unhallowed and clandestine burial’. However, perhaps Nan Beverley’s ghost was not merely a nineteenth-century bogeyman used to encourage children to return home when darkness fell; perhaps her restless revenant disturbs the peace of the churchyard still …

Author Stephen Wade certainly had an uncanny experience whilst exploring the precincts of the churchyard one wintry Sunday evening in 2006. He wrote, ‘There was that eerie silence we feel when snow somehow insulates much of the normal sounds around … I had stopped for a few seconds in the evening twilight, close to the church walls, and I was aware of shuffling sounds from around the corner. It sounded like an animal – the kind of noise dogs might make if snuffling or digging. I walked slowly around to where the noise was coming from, but there was nothing to see – and yet I could still hear the sounds, as if there was something just a few feet from me.’

The Ring O’ Bells Inn, Upper Kirkgate

The Ring O’ Bells inn stands in the very shadow of Halifax Minster and if its current name was not enough to denote its ecclesiastic connections, it was formerly known as the Sign of the Church. Although the current building dates to 1720, a hostelry has stood on the site since at least the fifteenth century – no doubt providing for the crowds of pilgrims that once swarmed down Cripplegate to sup the curative waters of St John’s Well nearby. The surrounding streets were once the very centre of the medieval town, although by the Industrial Revolution the area was notorious for its slums and rookeries, leading to their demolition in 1890.

Ghostly activity at the pub was brought to public attention in 2007, when licensee Angie Hopkins told the Halifax Evening Courier about their resident fireside spook – familiarly dubbed ‘Walter’. ‘Sometimes people have said they can smell something strong like a pipe being lit and smoked,’ she explained, ‘I had one customer who came to me just as he was leaving. He said “I’ve been watching this old chap all night …” It would be lovely to know if he is an old customer or perhaps even a former landlord.’

Mrs Hopkins went on to describe common poltergeist-type activity, such as finding the bathroom taps had turned themselves on during the night or the beer taps had turned themselves off in the cellar. Her subsequent enquires revealed that a previous landlord and former staff had also encountered ghosts on the premises – including ‘a lady in old-fashioned clothing … [who] leaves a smell of lavender in her wake’. Hopkins was not fazed by the presence of such phantasmal guests, however. ‘I suppose you just get used to it,’ she said, ‘I don’t think they mean us any harm.’

The Ring O’ Bells with Halifax Minster in the background.

David Glover, an officer of the Halifax Antiquarian Society, wondered if the haunting was connected to one of the pub’s most curious features: an old gravestone cemented into a recess in the cellar. Dated July 1667, the slab commemorates the death of 3-year-old Hannah Priestley of Northowram. Glover also suggested that the stone’s position – in the corner closest to the Minster – suggests it may once have sealed a subterranean passage between the two buildings. Rumours of such tunnels have circulated since the eighteenth century, when the pub provided accommodation for the clerks and sextons of the church.

Square Chapel & Congregational Church, Talbot Square

These two Halifax landmarks dominate the north side of the Piece Hall and their history is intimately connected. The red-brick Square Independent Chapel – the oldest of the two buildings – was designed by the 19-year-old architect Thomas Bradley, two years before he worked on the Piece Hall. When it opened on 24 May 1772, it enjoyed the distinction of being both the first dedicated Independent chapel in Yorkshire, and the largest Nonconformist place of worship in Britain.

Square Congregation church, Talbot Square.

Seventy-five years later, the Independent movement in Halifax had grown large and wealthy, and the imposing Square Congregational church was constructed alongside the chapel to accommodate their increasing numbers. Built during the Victorian Gothic Revival, its teetering 235ft spire was once the second tallest in the county. The church opened on 15 July 1857, after which the old neighbouring chapel functioned as a church hall and Sunday school.

As congregations dwindled through the twentieth century, both buildings fell on hard times. Square Congregational church closed its doors in 1970 and barely a year later a fire gutted much of its fabric. The remaining shell was eventually demolished in 1976, leaving only the Grade II* listed spire to posterity.

Square Independent Chapel, meanwhile, had been requisitioned by the army during the Second World War and stood derelict for many decades thereafter. Calderdale Council sold it to a charitable organisation in 1989 for a nominal sum of £25, and following extensive restoration, it reopened in 1992 as Square Chapel Centre for the Arts – now a local institution.

In 2005, the remains of Square church required extensive restoration work due to the danger from crumbling masonry and it was at this time that the alleged hauntings in the area came to light. When work on the repairs was arrested in March by the discovery of a mating pair of kestrels (a protected species) nesting in the spire, the council sent a crew of steeplejacks to photograph the birds for an official report.

However, one of the resulting images appeared to capture more than just a nest. Foreman Barry Done explained, ‘I was gobsmacked when I printed the photos. We’d been trying to get shots of the birds, but then this eerie figure appeared on one of them … In my twenty years as a steeplejack I’ve never seen the like.’

The photograph in question was taken by 18-year-old apprentice, Anthony Finnigan, and whilst he claimed not to have seen anything unusual in the spire at the time, he was subsequently reported as being too unnerved by the picture to continue working in the church alone.

Finnigan’s image was certainly more compelling than many modern alleged spirit photographs – which are rarely more than examples of pareidolia – and appeared to show a robed figure floating in the spire, its hands raised in a gesture of devotion. However, as local author Paul Weatherhead noted in his discussion of the case, it is suspicious that the original file had been deleted from the camera, meaning it could not be compared with the print.

Following reports in the Halifax Evening Courier, a local self-professed medium called Linda Francis came forward with photos taken at an event at the Square Chapel in 1998, which she claimed offered further evidence of ghostly activity in the vicinity. This image appeared to capture a spectral figure with a staff, hunched over another member of the audience and whilst the figure looked suspiciously like an overexposure, Mrs Francis claimed the photograph had been independently analysed and ‘signs of camera malfunction, light influx, fogging [or] deliberate hoax’ ruled out.

There have also been reports of supernatural activity in surrounding buildings, such as the former premises of Pennine Arts on Blackledge, a cobbled street which runs behind the Square Chapel. A joiner who worked in the property during the summer of 1972 vividly recalls that he and his fellow contractors were mystified by the distinct sound of footsteps coming from an empty upper room.

Linda Francis believed that the presence haunting the buildings around Talbot Square could be identified as Dr John Favour, the Vicar of Halifax from 1593 to 1623 – especially as the pose of the figure in Anthony Finnigan’s photograph from Square church closely resembled a bust of Dr Favour in Halifax Minster.

It is true that this strictly Puritan cleric had a bloody reputation; he often took part in the trials and execution of Catholic recusants at York, including that of the Jesuit martyr, Henry Walpole, in 1595. However, he was incumbent at the old parish church and died 150 years before even the Square Chapel was built, so there seems no reason for him to haunt those buildings; unless it was an expression of his continued displeasure at the ‘new and late upstart heresies’ those buildings represented!

Square Congregational Chapel, Talbot Square.

The Piece Hall, Halifax

Possibly the jewel in Halifax’s crown, the Piece Hall was originally built between 1774 and 1779 to serve as a cloth hall for the district’s ever-expanding domestic woollen industry. The vast edifice was built on land known as Talbot Close and housed 315 merchant’s lock-ups – all with the same dimensions – from which trade was conducted; while smaller concerns were permitted to sell their wares in the courtyard below.

As the cottage cloth trade declined, the Piece Hall’s original function was soon redundant. It was reopened in 1871 as a market hall and later narrowly avoided proposals by the local authority to demolish the building in the 1960s.

The Piece Hall was extensively redeveloped in 1976. In addition to housing an art gallery and museum, the former merchants lock-ups were converted into retail while the courtyard was used for a flea market and concert events. As town centre retail waned in the twenty-first century, Calderdale Council sought new ways to make it profitable and the Piece Hall closed in early 2014 for yet another major redevelopment.

It is hardly surprising that a building thronged with so many lives over the centuries has been populated with its fair share of otherworldly tenants. The most commonly referenced is the ghost of a small girl variously named Amy, Mary or Abigail; although it’s unclear whether these are different girls or simply different shopkeepers’ names for the same spirit – the latter seems most probable.

Her presence was most often noticed in a shop on the upper gallery which sold jewellery, gemstones and minerals. The owners never saw her phantom directly, but often caught glimpses in their peripheral vision, and she was blamed for moving items round in the display cabinets – even sometimes causing them to vanish altogether.

The interior of Halifax Piece Hall. (W. Burgess)

Her activity extended to neighbouring shops on the top tier. These included a book shop – in which she threw volumes from the shelves during the night – and a sweetshop, whose owners so pitied the unfortunate mite they left a lollipop out for her each night. They believed that, although she was a mischievous ghost, she was not malevolent and welcomed her to their shop. Such an offering recalls the libation of milk many rural farmers used to leave out on the hearth overnight for household faeries such as boggarts.

The Piece Hall ghost is generally identified with one of the girls from the Halifax Workhouse, which until 1840 was situated on Upper Kirkgate nearby. This grim institution opened in 1635 to house the ‘undeserving’ or ‘idle’ poor of the parish and provide them with meaningful activity – which essentially meant forced labour between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. In 1777 it accommodated over 100 inmates whom the workhouse guardians hired out to local businesses. Perhaps that’s how the girl’s connection with the Piece Hall came about.

Other ghosts are rumoured to haunt the Piece Hall, although none are as widely attested as the spectral girl. One of the staircases is said to be inhabited by the lingering shade of a cloth merchant who died when a scuffle between rival traders escalated. The extensive cellars – which are primarily used for storage by the council – are also supposed to have an uncanny atmosphere and spiritualist mediums claim to have made contact with presences in their depths.

An anonymous apparition is also alleged to rattle the locked gates. But, whilst the Piece Hall used to shut at 6 p.m. every evening and reopen at 9 a.m., at the time of writing the current renovation programme is projected to last eighteen months from January 2014 – hence the gates will only be opened to allow works traffic access and the phantom gate-rattler may be shaking their chains for some considerable time.

The Old Cock Inn, Southgate

This ancient building was originally built as a private home around 1580, possibly by Sir Henry Savile, a local scholar and associate of the celebrated Elizabethan magus, Dr John Dee. Since it was converted into a tavern in 1688, the building witnessed a number of significant episodes in the history of the town. It was a favoured spot of Branwell Brontë, drunkard brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, who often ran up large debts in the bar; whilst the elaborately decorated Oak Room upstairs provided an assembly hall for numerous civic societies, including West Yorkshire’s oldest Masonic Lodge and the Loyal Georgean Society, whose meeting on 23 December 1852 ultimately led to the foundation of the Halifax Building Society.

The paranormal incidents were recorded in the autobiography of Revd Thomas Wright, who also wrote the earliest history of the district, The Antiquities of the Town of Halifax in Yorkshire, in 1738. Wright explains that his ‘half-aunt’, Martha Horton, was landlady at the Old Cock for over thirty years, and it was to this venerable lady that the ghosts appeared.

The Old Cock Inn, Southgate.

To quote Wright’s account in full: ‘After the death of her first husband she [Martha] married a Nathaniel Longbottom, who proved but a very indifferent husband, deserted her, and went to London, married a second wife during her lifetime, used to send threatening letters to extort money from her, etc. She told me she saw his apparition the night of his death, as she lay awake with a Mr Newton, with whom she lived at that time and who was fast asleep by her side; that she looked earnestly at the ghost for some time, and it looked as earnestly at her … She told her bedfellow in the morning that Nathaniel was dead, she had seen him in the night, and expected a letter with an account of his death by the next post, which happened according to her expectations.’

Horton had a second similar experience some years later, when the apparition of a maltster who often stayed at the inn appeared one night in the bar ‘looking earnestly at her through the railings’ around the same hour at which she later heard he had died. This type of ghost – the wraith of a distant loved one seen at the moment of their death – is known as a ‘crisis apparition’. The notion was popular amongst clergymen such as Thomas Wright in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, as it seemed to offer evidence of the soul’s survival after death and was often recorded as exemplar in theological tracts. However, crisis apparitions are usually discrete manifestations and there have been no reports to suggest their presence lingered at the Old Cock.

The Palace Theatre, Ward’s End