Yorkshire

Burton Agnes Hall is a large and beautiful Jacobean house in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It stands close to a small village, between Bridiington and Driffield, The house was built by three sisters, They never martied and when their father died he left them gTeat wealth. One of the siaters, Anne, felt they should build a houre that suited their riches and importance. She engaged the best architects, craftsmen and artists, and watched over their work right down to the smallest detath Anne, called God Nance by those who lived, in the area, watches over the house still. It. is her ghost and skull that haunt the place.

It happened that. when th.e house was finished, much”to the sisters’ pride and satisfaction, Anne went one day to visit the St Quintin family who lived not far away at Harpham, She went alone, walking the mile or so to her friends’ house accompanied only by her dog. At nightfall, Anne set off for home. As she neared a lace called St John’s Well, she saw two roughdeoking tramps lying on. the grass by the side of the welt, She approached the men feeling a little afraid, for many tramps in those days made a living by robbing defence- less people in lonely places. But Anne had her dog as protection so she felt there was no real cause for worry, and she pressed on. When she reached the well the tramps stood up and politely begged for money Thinking it best to humour them, Anne took out her purse and gave the tramps a few coins. But as she did so the light of the setting sun glinted on a ring she wore. The tramps sa it. and. demanded rudely that she hand it over at once. Anne refused. The ring, she said, was not valuable, but it was precious to her because it was an heirloom. inherited from her dead mother. ‘Mother or rio mother,’ said one of the tramps harshly, ‘we mean to have it, Give it freely, or we’ll take it by force.’

Without waiting for answer, he grabbed hold of Anne’s hand and tried to pull the ring;fmom her finger. There was a scuffle. The dog harked and tried to bite the attackers. But while one of them held, on to Anne, the second drove the animal away with brutal blows from a. stick he carried. Anne screamed loudly arid shouted for help. ‘Stop that noise!’ cried the second. man, and he raised his stick in the air and hit Anne heavily on the head. She fell uncousci.OUS to the ground But her screams J.sad not gone unheard. Some vii- lagers came running into sight, and the tramps gave up their efforts to pull the ring from Anne’s finger. and scrambled away into the trees. The villagers found Anne still unconscious, her head bleeding freely through a gaping wound. Lifting her as carefully as they could manage, they carried her limp body back to Harpham Hail. There she was nursed back to her senses, and the next day, although weak and battered, she had recovered enough to he taken to her beloved home, She was put at once to bed..

For many days Anne lay in pain, her strength slowly weakening despite the loving attention of her two sisters and all that the best doctors in Yorkshire could do. During the long days of her sickness, she spoke often of one thing: the pride of her life, the magnificent house she had had. such a hand. in building. Finally, with little breath left in her frail body, she called her sisters to her bedside. ‘Sisters,’ she said, ‘never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave unless I, or part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts, Pronsise me, dear sisters, that when I am dead my head shall he taken from my body and preserved within these walls, Here let it remain for ever, and on no account he re-. moved, And understand, and make known. to those who in future shall become the possessors of the house that if they disobey this my last request, my spirit shall make such a disturbance within its walls as to render it uninhabitable for others as long as my head is kept from its home.’ The sisters were horrified by Anne’s request. But she would hear no arguments, and so to calm her and set her fevered mind at rest, the sisters agreed to do as she asked, though, of course, they dismissed the idea from their minds at once. Aame was ill, they thought, and did not know what she was saying. Soon afterwards she died. Her body was buried in the churchyard nearby. The sisters missed ne bitterly. She had been the most cheerful of the three women, the most talkative, the most active. Now she was gone and their life was dull; in the days that followed Anne’s funeral, her Sisters dearly wished her hack with theni,

A week to the day after Anne’s death, late in the evening, the two surviving sisters were on the point of going to bed when suddenly they heard a loud crash in one of the upstairs rooms. They rushed to the foot of the stairs and listened and were ined a few minutes later by the servants, also startled by the loud and violent flOiSe. The sisters ordered two of the rnenservants to go up and see what had caused the din. Th men climhed the stairs and searched the upper rooms, They re turned having found nothing unusual or out of place, Everyone grew very frightened, For a long time they stayed together in a nervous group, not one of them able to pluck up courage and go to bed. At length, however, having heard nothing more, they went to their rooms. A few days passed without further cause for alarm. But again, exactly a week later, in the dead of night the household was woken by what sounded like many doors being slammed shut in every part of the building. Sisters and servartts ran from their rooms, candles in hand, and met on the landing. Their shadows flickered on the walls about them, their faces were white, arid dressed in their nightgowns with their hair disarranged from sleeping, they looked themselves like a gathering of risen ghosts.

Keeping together for comfort and support, they searched the entire house. Every door was fast shut. Yet as they crept from one door to the next, the same terrifying crashes echoed round them, always coming from a part of the house other than where they stood. When they felt they couid bear the resounding noise no longer it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Exhausted, shaking with fear, they stopped in their tracks, For what seemed endless seconds the silent group listened breathlessly. Then one of the servants whispered,, ‘It seems finished.’ ‘Do you think,’ murmured one of the trembling sisters, that it is ftnished now entIrely?’ ‘Last time, once it had ceased it did. not start up again,’ said the other, Cold now so that they no longer knew whether they shivered from fear or from the chill night air, they listened a while longer. The house stood silent, dis turbed only by the whisper of their own quick breaths and the cry of an owl outside. Arid so at last they returned to their beds. But each one lay sleepless until daylight banished the fears of the night.

Another quiet week went by. But again, on the same night as twice before, the household had its sleep shattered, this time by the clatter of many people running along the passages and up and down the stairs. The house shook and thundered with the noise until it Stoppea all at once, only to he followed by something worse. A spine-chilling death-g-roan that echoed hollowly through the Hall. After the groan, the clattering feet stormed round the house with re n vigour. Until again the awful groan. And again th stamping feet. And, again the groan. On and on through the midnight hours. No living person left his room that night. No puzzled group met on the landing, no search was made, Ti he inhabitants of Burton Agnes Hall lay in sweats of agonized terror, clutching the bedclothes about their heads. Next day the women servants gathered their he longings. They could flo longer hear thc unearthly sounds that broke their sleep each week, they said, and would not remain another night in a house haunted by such an uneasy ghost. The sisters tried to calm the women, The noises must have a simple explanation, they said; they had nothing to do with ghosts. Of course they were caused by a ghost, replied, the servants. What else could it be? What simple explana tion had been found? None And with that they left the Hail,

The sisters, now without help in running their beautiful hut very large home, asked the vicar of the parish to visit them, They told him all that had gone on during the three weeks past, and discussed with him every possible solution to the mystery. During the course of the conversation the sisters remembered, for the first time since Anne had died, the promise they had made to her on her death bed. Arid they realized then that the noises had been heard on the very same night of the week on which Anne had. died, Could.. it be that their dead sister was keep.. ing now the promise sh.e had made with her dying breath? Her promise to make the house ‘uninhabit able for others’ if her head was not kept in the home she loved. Surely not l it was unthinkable. The vicar and the two sisters talked for many hours, trying to find a way of satisfying Anne’s wish. in des peration, the vicar finally suggested that Anne’s grave should be opened and her coffin looked into in the hope that this might shed some light on the problem. Reluctantly, the sisters agreed. The following day the vicar and his gravedigger opened Anne’s grave. When they reached thd coffin arid raised the lid a ghastly sight struck horror into both men’s hearts, Anne’s body was as it bad been three weeks before when the vicar had last seen it, prepared in its funeral robes, What caused such horror and amazement was Anne’s head. It was severed from the body and, worse still, the flesh and skin had shrivelled away, leaving a naked skull,

This was enough for the vicar and the sisters. Grotesque and hideous though her wishes seemed, the dead woman had her way: Anne’s skull was brought. into the Hall. So it was Owd Nance came home, and while her skull was left in peace the house remained free from ghostly interference. From time to time inhabitants have trjcd to get rid of the skull. But always the knocin ings, the resounding footsteps, and the blood-curdling groans have returned to plague the place until it is brought ha;k inside. Many legends surround the skull by now. One day, it is said, a maid threw it from an upper window onto a passing cart loaded with manure, From the moment the skull landed in the cart the horses were unable to move another step. The waggoner whipped them, hut in vain. And it was not until the maid confessed what she had done, and the skull was recovered and brought back in to the house, that the horses could- manage to pull the cart once more,. A man called Mr Ross, many years ago, wrote an account of one of Owd Nance’s i]auntiags at a tune when her skull had been put outside.

Some forty years ago, wrote Mr Ross, John Bilton, a cousin of mine, came from London on a visit to the neighbourhood of Burton Agnes Hall, and having a relative, Matthew Potter, who was game- keeper on the estate and resided at the Hall, he paid him a visit, and was invited to pass the night there. Potter, however, told olin that, according to popular report, the house was haunted, and that if he were afraid of ghosts he had better sleep else where. But John, who was a dare-devil sort of fellow, replied, ‘Afrajd I Not I indeed. I care not how many ghosts there may he in the house so long as they do not molest me.’ Potter then told him of the skull and of the painted portrait of Owd Nance that hung in one of the rooms, and asked him i2 he would like to see the picture. John replied that he would, and they went into the room where it was hanging. Potter held a light before the portrait, when, in a moment and without apparent cause, the light went out and. defied all attempts to rekindle it. Matthew and John were obliged to grope their way to their bedroom. in the dark.

They had to sleep in the same bed, and Matthew was soon asleep and snoring. But John, thinking of the tale of the skull and the curious circumstances of the sudden extinguishing of the light in front of the picture, lay awake. He had been thinking about an hour, when he heard a shuffling of feet outside the bedroom door, which at first he ascribed to the servants going up to bed. But as the sounds did not cease, hut kept increasing, he nudged Matthew and said, ‘Matty, what the devil is all that row about?’ ‘jinny Yewlats [ replied Potter in a half waking tone, and turning over, again began to snore, Th noises became more frantic, and it seemed ten or a dozen persons were scuffling about in the passage just outside, and rushing in and out of rooms, slamming doors with great violence, upon which John gave hi friend another vigorous nudge in th ribs, exclaiming, up, Matty. Don’t you hear that con founded row? What does it all mean?’ ‘Jinny Yewiars,’ sham muttered his Companion.

‘Jinny Yewiats!’ replied John hilton. ‘Jinny Yewlats can’t make such an infernal uproar as that!’ Matty, who was now snore awake, listened a moment, and then said, ‘It’s Owd Nance, hut I never take any notice of her.’ Arid he rolled over again and began to snore, After this the fun began fast and furious! A struggling fight seemed to be gong on outside, and the clapping of doors reverberated in the passage like thunderclaps. John expected every moment to see the door fly open arid Owd Nance with a troop of ghosts come rushing in. But no such a catastrophe occurred, and after a while the noises ceased, and about daybreak John fell asleep. Mr Ross heard this story from his cousin John the day after the eventful night. John, though he feared little and did not believe in ghosts, told Mr Ross that he had never passed such a frightening night before in his life, and that he would not sleep there again, even if he were offered the Hall ‘itself fur doing so. ‘What about Owd Nance now? Does she still cause the people of Burton Agnes the sleepless nights she has given so many others in her time? Only, it’s said, if anyone tampers with her skull, and tries to move it from the house she loved so much. And who can blame her? Burton Agnes Hail remains one of the finest houses in Yorkshire. And the story of Owd Narice is one of the most amazing of all British ghost stories.

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