OAKWELL HALL, WEST YORKSHIRE

BBC drama 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell'

 — partly shot at Oakwell Hall

Oakwell Hall which is a local to me, seems to be having a renaissance period at the moment, 'Shirley' a gorgeous house linked to the Bronte Sisters, with tales of crisis apparition. The house has been relatively ignored by 'ghost hunters', but thats changed somehow ?

Classified as a Crisis Apparition: Possible Veridical Haunting (Hallucination)

Oakwell Hall in Batley, West Yorkshire is a local haunt of mine 'so to speak' it has a famous legend.  The ghost of William Batt, a former owner of  Oakwell Hall in 1684 the ghost story comes from the Victorian writer Mrs Gaskell in her "Life of Charlotte Bronte".

"Captain Batt was believed to be far away; his family was at Oakwell; when in the dusk on winter evening, he came stalking along the lane, through the hall and up the stairs, into his own room, where he vanished. He has been killed in duel in London that very same afternoon of December 9th 1684."

A classic crisis apparition sighting, there is a legend that he left a bloody footprint behind in a bedroom, I remember seeing a dark stain on the floorboards many years ago but I can't remember which room I saw it in. Maybe it was just my young imagination.
 
A more modern witness saw children playing in the rear garden the children were wearing  period costume they ran off into a dead end part of the garden totally vanishing into thin air and never to be found outside nor inside the hall.

This is the back garden where the small children in period costume were seen by two visitors, only to just run off into a dead end disappear into thin air.

Source: Paranormal Database.

William Batt

Location: Birstall - Oakwell Hall
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: 09 December 1684 (Crisis Manifestation), other sighting in 1987
Further Comments: William's family saw him enter the hall on 09 December (some sources say Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, according to other accounts); they were surprised as they thought he was in London at the time. However, William suddenly disappeared and the following day the family discovered he had been killed in London around the time of his mysterious appearance. A woman wearing a Tudor dress was spotted hear in 1987 by an employee. The ghost stood by a window for several minutes before disappearing.

Most Haunted filmed at Oakwell Hall for Really TV.

Wikipedia entry

THE HIGHWAYMAN OF OSSETT - West Yorkshire

THE HIGHWAYMAN OF OSSETT, THE RED LION INN.

The Red Lion is allegedly one of the oldest inns in Ossett, it is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a traveller or highwayman who hanged himself in one of the bedrooms.  Blind Jack of Knaresborough surveyed parts of the highway which dates as far back as the 1700s.  It used to sit on the Dewsbury/Wakefield road, which was once part of the Wakefield/Halifax turnpike or toll road.  The road is roman in origin.

Robert Chappell (1795-1864), Ossett Highwayman

Born in Ossett in 1795, Robert Chappell became notorious as a thief and highwayman. It was said that his crimes were more numerous than those of Dick Turpin, but not as serious. Unlike Turpin, Chappell didn't murder anyone, but it was said that in local Petty and Quarter Sessions his name was as familiar as a household word and that conviction had followed conviction almost as soon as he had been released from the prison gates.

In 1835, he was saved from transportation to Australia and instead given six months hard labour in Wakefield's House of Correction.

Source

The House of Correction was established in the 1590s by George Saville as a place of detention and not punishment. The original site was at Northgate, Wakefield.

Source

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Whitley School

Whitley School and community centre ruins

Whitley School is situated in the small village of Whitley Lower, a picturesque countryside location about 4 miles outside of Dewsbury West Yorkshire. 

There have been rumours in the village that the old school has a ghost, fondly named as 'Brandy' he was supposedly one of the old caretakers sons. New caretakers employed there have heard strange unexplained noises, pipes rattling and objects been moved in the boiler room. Of course this is all conjecture,  references to the ghost can be found in the old school diaries.

Black Dicks Temple, Near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - monument ruin

Beaumonts Bolt

http://www.kirkburtonparishwalks.co.uk/Grange%20Mo...pdf

Update: 13 January 2013. 
I was invited by PARANORMAL ENCOUNTERS (founder Agent Rob) a newly set up paranormal team in West Yorkshire to join them at Black Dick's Temple, earlier I said I couldn't make it, but later managed to get up there, apparently scaring the crap out of them as I turned up by surprise, they wondered who I was. 

You could see the temple all lit up from over a mile away, I was very impressed, all very professional, they had a generator running a laptop in a tent, with remote cameras and various other gadgets in abundance. The area they were investigating was locked off and they were viewing (recording) it remotely. 

Paranormal Encounters investigation - Black Dick's Tower

Many many years ago one of the team had seen a what they recalled was a full apparition, a man wearing tutor style clothes sat on a black horse, just looking at them, but later found no hoof marks. This prompted interest in the history of Whitley/Beaumont and the history of  Whitley Hall which was apparently near the site.  They are still reviewing the footage, although they admitted it was a little flat, other than the spikes they were getting from the electricity pylons nearby. But, earlier this week, a team member was up there alone and heard a very distinct growl in his ear.

On a freezing cold but sunny Sunday morning we decided to pay Black Dick’s Temple a visit which is situated in Hopton near Mirfield. The stone folly overlooks Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. You can see for miles in a 180 degree direction. As we walked up to the building. My husband told me that his grandfather used to be a look-out here in the Second World War; he was an enemy plane spotter at the temple, he and his family used to live in the area, but he said that he had never actually seen the building up close. As we looked around we were quite taken a back by the big hole in the centre of the temple where a floor used to be.  I precariously perched on the edge and sat taking EVP’s. The recordings didn’t come out very well for some reason so I couldn’t tell if I had caught any EVP’s or not. I waved my EMF meter about and I was about to get excited as I was getting some very high readings, but then I spotted the over head pylons.

Black Dick was born in 1574 ('Black Dick of the North' was a nickname given to him by King James I) or Sir Richard Beaumont is known to haunt the temple, he was the first cousin of Elizabeth I.  He was well known for his criminal activities, he was a gambler, a bad debtor and a highwayman who was involved in piracy to pay off his depts.
When Richard Beaumont found out one of his young servant girl  employees had got pregnant he murdered her, he was the one who got her pregnant! He was thought to have been killed in a tunnel near Huddersfield whilst in a duel in 1631.

To this day people report seeing the spectre of Black Dick most commonly on July 5th, on the day in which he died.