Last week we recalled how in 1642 Bradford, staunchly Parliamentarian in the English Civil War, had twice repulsed the Royalists, helped first by a freak midsummer snowstorm and then by reinforcements from Halifax and Bingley, under the command of Captain John Hodgson. On the second occasion, the Royalist forces, under the Earl of Newcastle, had been driven off in the direction of Leeds, just before Christmas. But the town had not seen the last of his Lordship...

THIS TIME there would be no snowstorm to save them. Nor would there be any defenders.

Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas, had gathered their men, scattered in a defeat at the Battle of Adwalton Moor, beaten by the Earl of Newcastle on Friday, June 30, at a site just an hour's brisk march from Bradford.

It was a major setback for the Roundheads - it lost them control of Yorkshire apart from Hull, which is where the Fairfaxes and their forces finally fled, after a valiant but doomed attempt to defend the town. They fought to their last barrel of powder - and would have exhausted that but had not a match to their name.

Newcastle had a humiliation to avenge from the previous Christmas, and he was determined to enjoy it. If revenge was a dish best served cold, he was determined to have it iced, on a gold plate and garnished with parsley.

The Third Siege of Bradford was under way.

As the Fairfaxes quit the town, Lady Fairfax was captured on her horse at a spot just about where the Cock and Bottle now stands.

Newcastle, in a burst of chivalry, later sent her off home in his own carriage. But it was the last bit of gallantry he planned to show. As the carriage drove off, his guns - on the heights around the parish church - were pounding the town. Once again the church tower was hung with woolsacks, but the gunfire cut the ropes holding the sacks and they fell down, to the cheers of the besieging Cavaliers.

Newcastle - with the undefended town completely at his mercy - was comfortably settled in Bolling Hall, which gave him a reassuring overview of the siege as well as a good kitchen and a well-stocked cellar. But the food and drink did not put him in benevolent mood.

The following day would see the city fall; and by nightfall, Newcastle had decided, it would have become a ghost town. Every man, woman and child was to be killed. There was to be no mercy.

Word of this reached the besieged as the Royalist cannon continued its battering.

A contemporary writer recalled: 'Oh that dreadful and never-to-be-forgotten night, which was mostly spent in firing those delay engines upon us so that the blaze arising therefrom appeared like lightning from heaven, the elements being as it were on fire...

'Words cannot express, thoughts cannot imagine, nay, art itself is not able to paint out the calamities and woeful distresses we are now overwhelmed withal. Every countenance overspread with sorrow; every house overwhelmed with grief; husbands lamenting over their families; women wringing their hands in despair; children shrieking, crying and clinging to their parents; death in all its dreadful forms and aspects...'

But Bradford was not beyond help, although when it came it was not from the military nor, if some are to be believed, even of this world (and remembering that snowstorm in June the year before, who is to say that even nature itself might not jump through some pretty strange hoops on behalf of the place?)

That night the Earl of Newcastle retired to his bed in Bolling Hall. It was to be a restless night, and not just because of the cannon blasting away a few hundred yards from his window.

The main cause of his insomnia appeared in the wee small hours. Some say it was a ghost. Other more rational souls say it was more likely a human being dressed as a ghost - either a servant or a 'lady' introduced into the house. Some suggest it was Lady Fairfax. We shall never know.

Whatever or whoever it was, it came into the Earl's bedroom, heaved the bedclothes off him and cried out 'in a lamentable voice', urging him: 'Pity poor Bradford'.

This happened several times. The Earl, clearly frightened witless, did as he was asked and took pity. The townspeople were spared and, what's more, the Earl took his men and slung his hook quite shortly afterwards.

Bradford got badly mauled, food was destroyed, livestock stolen and Joseph Lister bought the same cow several times.

The cow was taken by the soldiers and Joe was sent by his master to get it back. He had to pay for it. That night the soldiers turned up again and removed the cow - again. So young Lister was sent off to buy it back - again.

This went on for a while until Joe's employer decided that the whole thing was getting too expensive and let the troops have the cow for good.

And that is what happened during the Third Siege of Bradford, and why one of the rooms at Bolling Hall is called The Ghost Bedroom - and why we're all here today.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.