Spooky stories

EVERYONE loves a spooky story. In his 1899 book The Ghosts of York, William Camidge described how families would gather at Christmas to listen to their favourite tales of terror.

"In the dim candlelight which left one half of a room encircled with darkness, the tales were repeated, whilst the blood of many curdled," he wrote. "The juniors especially glared with open eyes and open mouth, their limbs trembling and their spines chilled; yet they listened with morbid delight and agonising fear."

Upon that morbid delight is built a whole industry in today's York. Our most haunted streets echo nightly to the sound of many ghost tours.

Tonight, as we approach the witching hour of Hallowe'en, we bring you our own ghost walk. You may wish to read it under the bedclothes at night. Or you might want to follow the route, looking for phantoms on a suitably dark and gloomy night. That is your choice.

But we implore you: do not go alone...

A party ends in tears

Number 41 Stonegate is now the premises of an antiques business and tea room. Once it was the home of an eminent Victorian doctor.

He often entertained, and at one party he introduced his six-year-old daughter to guests. With her charm and long blonde hair, she soon made many new friends.

The girl was then sent to bed in her attic room on the third floor. Later she crept out to listen to the assembly below.

Leaning over the banister to hear more, her hand slipped and she plummeted to her death in the cellar four floors below.

At night time it is said you can still hear her footsteps as she ascends that staircase. Only once has her ghost been seen, sitting on a shop counter, blonde hair shining.

The ghostly passenger

Coachman Tom and his girl Nance, a Sheriff Hutton farmer's daughter, were due to marry when she left him for another. Tom did not see her again until a year later. Driving his coach one night, he spotted her, exhausted, cold and clutching her child by the side of the road.

As he took her to a tavern in York, Nance explained that she had left her lover, a married highwayman.

Before Tom resumed his journey Nance promised to warn him whenever he was in danger. Soon afterwards, she died.

One night two years later, Tom was taking passengers from Durham to York. He had been promised four guineas extra if he arrived on time at eight o'clock. But all hope of that disappeared when a thick fog descended.

Suddenly, the ghostly figure of Nance appeared by Tom's side. She took the reins and the horses galloped to their destination, the Black Swan Inn on Coney Street, arriving at five to eight. She vanished before he could thank her.

A lawless judge

At one time members of the legal profession visiting York for the assizes would stay at a timbered building on Spurriergate.

On a cold November night in the 1800s, a barrister arrived at this place, the Judge's House, and was shown to his room.

At 2am he awoke. Terrified he heard footsteps in his room. They went to the door. Then he heard a voice twice cry "Henry!"

The footsteps went downstairs; there followed a murmur of voices, a scuffle and a shriek.

With horror, the barrister then heard stumbling footsteps coming back up the stairs, through the locked door and into his room. The sound of a heavy fall on to the floor was followed by silence.

The next day, the maid told the barrister how a judge had stayed in that same room 150 years earlier. His nephew Henry stayed in the room next door, but was found dead from a knife wound the following morning.

The judge himself investigated the death and ruled it was suicide.

Triple tragedy at Trinity

ONE family who worshipped at Holy Trinity Church in Micklegate consisted of a husband, wife and their baby. The husband died and was buried in the graveyard. The wife's grief was made unbearable when she lost the infant to the plague. He had to be buried in unconsecrated ground outside the city walls.

The woman died, it is said, of a broken heart, and was buried with her husband. But several members of the congregation have seen her rise from the grave only to return with a baby in her arms.

Holy Trinity is also haunted by a nun slain during the dissolution of the monasteries.

A bookish ghost at the museum

On September 20, 1953, George Jonas, caretaker of the Yorkshire Museum, saw an old man wearing a frock coat and sporting white side whiskers reading a book in the library.

"He looked agitated and kept muttering 'I must find it, I must find it'," Mr Jonas told the Evening Press.

"I stretched my right hand out to touch him on the shoulder. But as my hand drew near his coat he vanished, and the book he had been holding dropped to the floor."

Other members of the staff later saw the same book - Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church, published 1896 - remove itself from the shelf and fall to the floor.

High drama at the York Theatre Royal

ONE night long ago, an actor playing at the Theatre Royal had an argument with another man in Blake Street. He was mortally wounded.

While the understudy took his role that night, the rest of the company was horrified to see a vision of the dead man staggering about in the wings.

York Minster

visitation

In 1825, two sisters were being guided around the Minister by a man recorded only as Mr BL. As one of the women admired a monument, a man in naval uniform approached. Mr BL noticed that the woman went white with fear upon seeing him.

The figure came to her and whispered in her ear: "There is a future state." He then disappeared into the depths of the Minster.

When she had recovered, the woman explained her reaction to Mr BL. "I have seen the spirit and heard the voice of a brother who exists no longer; he has perished at sea," she said.

"We had agreed that the one who died the first should appear to the survivor if it were possible, to clear up or confirm the religious doubts existing in both our minds afterwards."

It was later discovered her brother had drowned at the precise moment he had appeared to her.