HOWARTH VILLAGE, WEST YORKSHIRE

HOWARTH

Location: West Yorkshire, England.


The Black Bull Pub

Ghostly manifestations:

The pub has been both a pub and a b & b. The attic was used as a dormitory. The most well known spirit in the pub is that of Branwell Bronte, brother of the Bronte sisters. He regularly visited the Apothecary where he got his supplies of opium. He drank himself to death here but passed away in the parsonage of chronic bronchitis and consumption on 24th September 1849 behind the church of which his father was the vicar. He is laid in the family vault at Howarth Church. He was known as a freemason and became secretary of the lodge. Many meetings were held at the black bull pub, Branwells chair is at the top of the stairs in the hallway of the pub, his spirit has been sensed sitting in this chair by mediums.

A spirit of a child has also been seen handing sweets out to someone that can’t be seen. In the main bar area two male spirits have been seen sitting at one of the tables, one is known to be Dan Sugden he was the landlord in the Bronte era, a small man who wore a top hat, he was nicknamed Little Nosey. In room 2 someone witnessed a dark figure of a man watching them in bed and in room 3 a maid is supposed to haunt, when it used to be a bed and breakfast the owner used to re-arrange the room only to come back and find everything back in its place. Outside On the cobbled road outside flitting figures and people have seen folks walking past then they just disappear. A spirit girl has been heard crying near the allotments.

Ghostly anomalies
People have noticed been tapped on the head as they walk through the main door, someone brushing past on the main staircase, a bell rings on its own and the light above the Bronte picture moves every night, ashtrays and glasses are thrown to the floor when nobody is about, plates smash in the kitchen area, horrible smells, footsteps, utterances.
In the graveyard:

There is a large graveyard just behind the pub apparently it is supposed to contain 40.000 bodies, but it has been told that due to subsidence over many years that some of the bodies many have eerily slid down the hill and now lie right under the pubs foundations. If you visit Howarth you can go on a lantern light graveyard tour.

Related stories:

Branwell also had a fasination for ghosts especially shucks, a phantom black dog that had chains round its neck.

Parsonage: The parsonage is also known to be haunted.


The ghost of Emily Bronte has been seen walking on the moorland path near the waterfall. On 19 December 1978, the anniversary of her death, she appeared at Weaver’s restaurant, where she climbed a staircase that had been removed years before.