Scariest night of the year

First things first, for any readers of a nervous disposition. Ghosts don’t exist. When we are dead, depending on your spiritual point of view, we’re either heading off for our great reward in whatever heaven we believe in, or mouldering in the grave. People don’t come back once they’ve shuffled off this mortal coil.

That doesn’t stop us getting a thrill and a chill as the nights close in and Halloween draws nearer, though. Despite the lack of any scientific evidence to prove the existence of spirits, we all love a good ghost story.

How else do you explain the success of TV shows such as Most Haunted, or Ghost-hunting With… where teams of celebrities are locked up in darkened mansions or dungeons where there have been reports of supernatural activity? If there are no such things as ghosts, why do we feel twitchy when the wind howls around our home late at night, why do we shy away from dark shadows?

Ghost-hunting has become something of a growth industry. There are websites devoted to the practice, selling hi-tech meters to detect drops in temperature or fluctuations in electromagnetic energy fields.

If truth be told, however, to be a real ghost-hunter you only need a few easily-obtained items. A notebook to record your visions is vital, as is a camera and possibly a camcorder for that all-important evidence.

Scatter some talcum powder around to pick up ghostly footprints, and if you hang lengths of cotton from the ceiling you can detect the passage of invisible beings. Other than that, you’ll need to park your disbelief at the door, pump up your bravery, and get the permission of whoever owns the haunted house to continue.

But none of that’s going to bother us, is it? Because we know ghosts don’t really exist. Or… do they? What, I wonder, is that prickling feeling at the back of your neck as you read these words? Is it anything to do with that dark shadow I can see just over your right shoulder..?

Bolling Hall

Bradford has a long and illustrious tradition of ghostly legends, and no report of the city’s phantom residents can be made without a mention for one of the most famous spooky stories of the last 350 years: the haunting at BOLLING HALL.

It was December, 1642, and England was riven by Civil War. Bradford was a Puritan sort of place, and the city sided with Oliver Cromwell, feeling that Parliament, not the King, should have governance over the people.

As punishment for Bradford’s allegiance to Cromwell, the Earl of Newcastle and his Royalist troops laid siege to Bradford, and Newcastle stayed with Sir Richard Tempest, a staunch Royalist, at his home of Bolling Hall, which at that time overlooked the town of Bradford.

Despite his comfortable surroundings, Newcastle was not in the best of moods, and one Sunday evening declared that every man, woman and child in Bradford was to be put to the sword for their defiant resistance.

But Newcastle did not sleep well after making his edict. In the dead of night, his bedclothes were pulled from him, and a spirit stood at the foot of his bed, wringing its hands and imploring the terrified Earl to “Pity poor Bradford!”

The Earl of Newcastle did. He still attacked the next day, but changed his earlier decree and said that only those who resisted should be killed. There were apparently fewer than ten casualties. The Royalists had taken Bradford, but the mysterious ghost who had intervened had saved thousands of lives.

Manchester Road

A terrifying phantom haunted the MANCHESTER ROAD area in 1926. Very much in the manner of the Victorian bogeyman Spring-Heeled Jack, darling of the penny dreadfuls and nemesis of Londoners, the perpetrator of the 1926 attacks might well have been a mortal man with mischief on his mind… or something much more mysterious.

Over a period of several nights, a figure which was described as wearing a sheet with black eye-holes – the classic cartoon vision of a ghost – attacked several homes in the Manchester Road area and the Bierley estate. He – it? – terrorised residents, mostly women walking alone. As quickly and as strangely as they had begun, the attacks suddenly ceased.

Haworth

Across the moors in Haworth, the rich history of the literary Bronte sisters is also entwined with that of the supernatural. The Brontes themselves were not averse to bringing the paranormal into their writing – witness Cathy’s unquiet spirit at the start of Wuthering Heights, and the mention of the large, goat-dog hybrid of Yorkshire myth, the ghostly guytrash, in Jane Eyre.

But do the ghosts of the Brontes themselves walk the cool, shadowed corridors of the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth?

There have been claims that shadowy outlines have been seen in the Parsonage windows, and that the sisters still haunt their old home. What we’re to make of the claim that Charlotte Bronte’s spirit materialised in a London cab is anyone’s guess, though.

More definite sightings – if such a thing can exist – have been made at the Black Bull pub in Haworth, where the spirits do not appear to confine themselves to the optics behind the bar. Dark figures have been sighted from the corner of the eye, and a mysterious man in a beige suit has apparently been spotted drinking at the bar… the ghost of our man in Havana, perhaps. Glasses and ashtrays have been flung to the floor in empty rooms, and one recurring vision is of a man in a top hat and smoking a cigar – some guests have even reported smelling the cigar smoke. Could this be Branwell Bronte, wayward male scion of the Bronte clan?

Windhill Cemetery

Cemeteries would seem to be a good place to find ghosts, but if we venture to Windhill Cemetery we might find more than we bargained for. As recently as the 1980s there were reports of a strange figure which came to be known as the Owlet Vampire. It had a classic vampire appearance – a tall, dark man with a pale face and bright red lips, and even the fangs to match. He would appear in front of passers-by from seemingly nowhere, terrifying them and causing them to flee.

Midland Hotel

The famous stage actor Sir Henry Irving had been performing at the Theatre Royal, Bradford, playing Becket in Tennyson’s eponymous play. He suffered a stroke on stage and, ever the trooper, uttered his character’s line as his final words. He was rushed to the lobby of the Midland Hotel, in the city centre, where he was staying, but died. As befitting one of the lions of the Victorian theatre, he was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey. But many have claimed to see a shadowy figure with the imposing bearing of a master thespian haunting the carpeted corridors and cool lobby of this grand old hotel.

City Hall

For a good old traditional spook, you probably can’t beat City Hall right in the middle of Bradford. That wailing sound you can hear after dark? Perhaps the anguished cries of councillors as a meeting goes on far too long. Or perhaps it is Chains Charlie who, delightfully, walks around with his head tucked underneath his arm. Legend says that Chains Charlie was once a prisoner in the bowels of the building – presumably where his nickname arises from.

Old Silent Inn

Ghost-hunting is thirsty work and, it seems, phantoms like a drink in death as much as they did in life. Why else would so many pubs be the scene of reports of haunting? Back out towards Bronte country, the Old Silent Inn at Stanbury boasts not only a very spooky name and setting – against the vast, lonely moors – but also a wealth of spiritual activity.

The pub apparently takes its name from the fact that Bonnie Prince Charlie apparently used to stay at the inn in secret – hence the name, as locals were told to “keep silent” about the illustrious visitor. Among the ethereal visitations that are meant to haunt the pub are that of a soldier without a head, a man who was killed defending Bonnie Prince Charlie on one of his covert visits, and even a ghost that was not even once alive – a spectral bell that tolls in the night.