Bradford house features on spooky road trip

With Halloween around the corner, car maintenance brand Holts has mapped out some ghostly road trips that take in some of Britain’s most infamously haunted locations - from Whitby Abbey to the Hellfire Caves of Buckinghamshire.

The road trip maps are divided into regions across the UK - with the Yorkshire map featuring such places as Bradford’s Bolling Hall and Dales beauty spot Bolton Abbey.

The Yorkshire Halloween journey is, says Holts, 254 miles in total and takes seven hours to complete. Along the way you could enjoy a drink at The Golden Fleece - said to be the most haunted pub in York, a city full of haunted pubs - and indulge in a spot of ghost-hunting at historic Bolling Hall.

Map of the spooky road trip (Image: Holts)

Says Holts: “However warm a welcome Yorkshire offers, it pales in comparison to the creeping dread that encompasses the county’s most haunted sites and buildings.

“Between fabled destinations like York, Whitby and Beverley, Yorkshire delivers some of the most genuine scares on our entire UK Halloween road trip...so strap yourself in.

“Whitby Abbey is spooky enough at the best of times, and that’s before you read about the ghost of St Hilda. From there, we make the journey to York, a city that has certainly seen its fair share of ghostly goings on over the years.

“Next, the eerie ruin of Bolton Abbey brings plenty of creepy tales, while the halls of Bolling and Hodroyd at Felkirk offer more than 500 years of blood-curdling history between them.

“The route ends at The Monks Walk pub in Beverley, where the sound of jangling keys can be heard in the dark of night...”

Throughout its 900-year history - it was first mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 - Bolling Hall in East Bowling has been home to spooks a-plenty.

The hall’s most famous ghost was witnessed by the Earl of Newcastle during the English Civil War. In 1643 the Earl was stationed at Bolling Hall after his troops took over Bradford, and one night he woke up after his bed cover was tugged to see a woman wringing her hands, telling him to “Pity poor Bradford” and not carry out a massacre on the city.

The Earl was said to have been shaken up by the visitation and ordered his troops to kill only those who resisted.

Other spooky sightings at Bolling Hall include a wooden cradle rocking back and forth, a lady in white appearing to float in mid-air across a room and disappear into a fireplace, and Bradford composer Frederick Delius’s piano playing on its own. Visitors claim to have heard children playing in empty rooms, sudden shadows appearing, perfume scents in the air, and Parliamentarian officers marching through rooms.

Industrialist and social reformer Richard Oastler, known as the Factory King for his campaigning to limit children’s working hours in 19th century mills, is also said to have haunted Bolling Hall. In 1861 one of the owners’ sons awoke to see Oastler standing at the bottom of his bed - and by the following morning his father had received a telegram saying that Richard had died.

Bolton Abbey was founded in the 12th century - one of around 700 monasteries established in England. What sets it apart from other well known monasteries in the area, such as Rievaulx and Fountains, is its moorland setting.

Ghostly sightings there have included the sounds of footsteps around the rectory, and a phantom canon re-visiting his old home.

Hodroyd Hall in the hamlet of Felkirk near Barnsley is a country house steeped in history. First referenced in 1144, it has been a monastic building, the country seat of the Monckton family and offices for the National Coal Board.

In 2019 the historic hall was visited by the team from TV’s Most Haunted and coins were said to have mysteriously appeared. One crew member was so spooked he had to leave.

At Ripon Workhouse Museum Ripon the grim and gloomy atmosphere of what was the last resort for the homeless and destitute has been carefully maintained to give visitors a sense of how inmates lived, worked and died. For many, the only way out was in a coffin.

A poorhouse has stood on the site since 1776 and the original building was replaced in 1854. Museum visitors have reported an overwhelming sense of being watched and followed around the site, and some say they’ve witnessed ghostly figures in the schoolroom. Poltergeist activity is said to be rife, and mists and shadows often appear. There have been reported sightings are of former workhouse residents, including a man called Stan who appears in the nurses’ room.

Whitby was famously the setting for Bram Stoker’s horror classic Dracula, and the Yorkshire seaside town, beloved of Goths, is well known for its ghostly apparitions. Whitby Abbey is said to be haunted by he ghost of St. Hilda, its founder, who roams the ruins and peers from windows. She is joined by Constance de Beverley, a nun who broke her vows of chastity and was bricked up alive inside the abbey walls. Her ghost is heard pleading for her release.

* Have you seen a ghost? Do you have any spooky stories to share? We’d love to share your ghost stories (non fiction) in the T&A. Email them to emma.clayton@nqyne.co.uk