Trip Advisor claims that the Turnipfish Theatre stirs ‘Ghostly chills in Otley’s ‘orrible past’ and is ‘spookily insightful’. Our Customs, Folklore and Magic bulletin of 2023 might just have given the best or worst of serpents, witches, boggards and barguests from historic imagination, but was careful to point out that Otley’s other ghosts were too many for that article.
Obviously, now is the time to correct that omission before unlicensed spirits swamp the local streets.
Since supernatural stories are as old as the local hills, we need to map some of them. It is no surprise that dramatic re-telling should be repeated to entertain the natives. An early twentieth century reporter sent to the Washburn valley with a leading question was told:
Ghosts did yer say… why we’ve hundreds of ’em up here… It’s Gospel. If you think yer know more abaht it than me, what yer assin for?
Our safer market town might not quite meet these numbers, but its wildest dreams were no less fertile in the attempt, with about 30 recorded spiritual encounters. A historic background to the supernatural needs some context with a summary of persistent phantom families and their individual offspring. If it was ‘Gospel’ in the twentieth century Washburn, then it had been for a long time in English history and in works such as the the Venerable Bede’s eighth century Historia Ecclesia and the ghost of an Abbess.
The dominance of the medieval church and its own paramount holy ghost was all part of the generational witness against evil spirits. Wonder and inspiration were set against devilish darkness at every turn, as souls were trapped in purgatory. The question has always been, was this personal perception or external agency? The periodic testimony needs to be reviewed in chapter and verse.
Here be dragons
Whereas medieval manuscripts are full of piety and purpose, demons, dragons, serpents and monsters populate their marginal edges. We have suggested one such Anglo-Saxon mythical beast at Worm Hills on the Parish Church hill. To the people of the time, we could no more challenge its existence than we could the Victorian Cottingley fairies over in Airedale – that was until the photgraphy proved fake. Any explanation of the following stories is entirely in the eye of the beholder, be it ancient or modern.
Stories of the supernatural, said the Rev. G.H. Brown, ‘were common in the old days – they belonged to the time of poorly lighted streets, candle dips and tinder box light fires. Better lights and council schools had not yet made an end of them’. If that was reflection of Otley in the 1850s, what better vision do we have now?
Who let the dogs out?
Natural fear and trepidation was a major element in the experiences of the devil dogs, spectral hound and barguest which appear frequently in local and national folk lore. The barguest was a large black dog which trailed links of clanking iron, which according to the Rev. Brown was ‘none other than one of the many mastiffs kept by our forefathers’.
For those wishing to meet such a dog, one drags his chain on Johnny Lane, guards treasure at Dob Park lodge and roams Weston Hall. George Topham, drunken Boroughgate blacksmith, was haunted by a barguest, which was the Parish Constable’s mastiff. The sinister skeleton of a large hound, found in the northern doorway of the Archbishop’s Manor House suggested the dumping of a body during post-medieval dereliction and not the deliberate burial of a spiritual guardian. A barguest also walked Bosky Dike lane at Fewston, alongside the haunt of the Washburn witches ‘familiars’.
Fairy tales
Fairies, trolls, hobgoblins and boggards occupied the landscape, often as little people who danced with demons. Historian Harry Speight noted that ‘boggard catching’ was entered in Yeadon Township books. Boggards took many animal forms and it is probable the rabid stray dogs might have been the victims as against any literal ‘mind boggling’ magic. Payment for troublesome vermin was also a parochial custom. Hell holes, fairy dells and hob becks were dark places of fear and not fun, in a historic landscape which contained primitive threat.
Which witch?
Edward Fairfax and the Washburn witches were at the centre of the local seventeenth century supernatural. The secluded valley contained all the elements for his dramatic narrative. Otley Parish Church precinct concealed witch bottles and another sign of the usual suspects – old and poor women suspected of sorcery against their neighbours. Witchcraft was in a golden age of superstition, be it here or in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Not only was the Fewston coven supposed to congregate in ‘Timmel Gill’ but could be joined by the ghost of Wardman who was ‘villainously murdered’ and walked the ravine every night. The Washburn community has performed the Witches since, a twentieth century drama at Timble, ominously postponed because of bad weather – a cautionary tale in itself.
The fluidity of the yarn was summed up by writer G. Bernard Wood in Yorkshire Life of 1964, when he recalled a conversation with Benny Kent of Tatefield Hall. ‘Scow Hall’ he said ‘was often under the witches spell and everybody knew that rowan wood gave protection against their evil influence’.
Hall tales
The haunting of local hall houses was obvious due to age, occupation and vivid history. The Washburn valley’s Cragg Hall, Lindley Hall with it’s ‘many ghosts’ and Dob Park Lodge pack of mastiffs all had phantom populations. After 10 years detailed work on Scow Hall, no ghost was ever encountered by the writer of this article, a similar result occuring with my failed ghost hunting at Middleton Lodge, Ilkley during the 1960s. Arthur Raistrick has commented, ‘all the ghosts on record, might be accounted for by the creaks and groans of green cut oak built timber houses’. Talking oak at Scow Hall came green from Harewood saw mill. Newall old hall was said to be a ‘mansion to cry out as haunted’, the reputation of which can be noted in our Newall bulletin of 2018. Newall new hall offers a female apparition which walks through the garden door onto Farnley Lane. Otley Old Hall at 15-17 Kirkgate, claims an old man in an upper window, looking towards the Chevin from his rocking chair.
Dear departed
For those wishing to meet the dead before they departed, all they had to do was turn up at the Parish Church on old Martinmas Eve. Habitual ghost hunter the Rev. Brown went, but missed the party. Elsewhere a wailing wife, was supposed to follow the ghost of her husband, murdered by footpads in the woods north west of Otley, at a location yet to be found. At Arthington Mill, down river, the mere was haunted by one Crowther, killed during building work. On East Chevin Road an ethereal carrier waits for eternity, against a wall. Ghost children chatter in the basement of Brunswick House on Leeds Road. So the departed return to the scene, invited or otherwise. Otley’s supernatural shoe folklore and its spiritual insurance has been explained in our Shoes bulletin of 2019.
Phantom figures
Phantom figures fill the cultural twilight, filling the stage with resurrections. Moving into 38 Market Place in the 1870s, James Walker, printer and grandfather of Harold, local historian, came face to face with the previous resident, Ellen Horner. The Horner family of painters and paper hangers, occupied the house for 60 years. The matriarch, described as a ‘Planet Ruler’, had an astrological association which would have certainly been exorcised by the witch finders of the seventeenth century. Making his way to bed in the early hours, James met the old woman’s apparition in frilled cap with candle in hand. Her portrait adorns Harold Walker’s ‘Little Town of Otley’. Green and White Lady houses, were historic homesteads demolished on Cross Green which sheltered wronged women adorned in silk. Ilkley Road housed the ‘Lady with the beads’, with little of the haunted character.
A workman, employed in the conversion of Kirkgate Yorkshire Bank, on the site of the Grey Horse pub, followed breeches clad legs up the stairs, only to find the upper floor empty. A structural engineer at the Mechanic’s Institute claimed a cellar ghost at work alongside – although neither seems to have solved the building’s problems. A bearded apparition in the upper window of Boroughgate Wesleyan Manses of 1848, then a solicitors office, could not be identified – unless it was the ghost of former senior partner, C.J.F. Atkinson.
A millenium of burials, the bone house and monumental Navvies Memorial have left Church Lane steeped in the supernatural. It could not, however, be the gathering ground of Ghouls since they have their origin in Arabic folklore and language – a spirit preying on corpses in Muslim superstition. A piercing scream from one of four girls here on a frosty winter’s night in 1968, failed to stop a ghostly man in a long black coat. He moved silently away with no sound or sight of breath in the cold air.
Radio 4 ‘Home Truths’ of 4th March 2006, related the haunting of a 1950s Otley house, experienced by the Potter family during the 1980s. Children’s footsteps at night, unexplained noises and voiceless telephone calls were the phantoms in question. The location of the house was not given in order to protect new owners.
The ghostly bedrock of the unexplained happening has a pack of poltergeists popping up at the Cross Pipes pub on Westgate. Self propelled darts, an animated telephone and driverless car entertained the regulars. Perhaps the offending spirits could enter and exit by the secret tunnel to the church? (which is of course, apocryphal – ed.)
The Black Bull figures, had a ‘troupe’ of soldiers for a short time, footsteps and disturbed nights. The Woolpack on Bondgate also had a lady in black. Modern observers including Brumfitt (1988) and Goor (2006) with Turnipfish Theatre (2024) have continued the search, but it is now time to review the journey, over a longer time frame. From sinuous serpents to self-drive cars, fairies to white-coated fish shop phantoms who walk through walls and people – the transparency should be researched. The rest is history, so to speak, or not, depending on how you look at it. We have touched upon fun, fear, fallacy, fairy folk or actual departed souls – the choice as always is yours. Ghost writing of the rational and irrational will continue. If there really are more ghosts per square mile in England than any other country – why stop now?
With the generation of the ultimate ghost in the machine, AI now offers perception by supernatural algorithm.
Sources
The considerable literature on the subject is confined here to ghost writing on the locality. Oral recollection, many and varied in the telling.
Grainge, W. 1882 ‘Daemonologia, Edward Fairfax, 1621’ Parkinson, T. 1888 ‘Yorkshire, Legends and Traditions’ Walker, H. 1974 ‘Little Town of Otley’ Brown, Rev. G.H. 1982 ‘Reminiscences’ Brumfitt, E. 1988 ‘Otley and Menston’ Goor, K. 2006 ‘Haunted Leeds’ Wood, P. 2013 ‘Guide to the Townscape’
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