One of the bedrooms at Bolling Hall is
generally known as "The Ghost Room." Nobody within living memory has actualy
seen a ghost there, but there is a story that one appeared there once, long
ago.
The Civil War raged up and down the country during 1642, 1643 and
1644. Bradford's first real brush with the War was in December 1642. The town
was very Puritan, the local people valuing their right to read and discuss the
Bible as they chose, to worship as they liked, and to listen to their own choice
of preachers. The town, therefore, was generally sympathetic to Oliver Cromwell,
and his idea that Parliament, not the King alone, should have the final say in
all matters of law.
Bolling Hall then stood outside the town, with a
commanding view over the whole of it towards the Parish Church and the main
streets of Ivegate and Kirkgate. The owner, Sir Richard Tempest, belonged to the
old school who believed that the King alone had the right, received directly
from God, to rule as he saw fit, and that Parliament should be lower. Sir
Richard was therefore a Royalist.
The town of Bradford was besieged by
the Royalist army, under the Earl of Newcastle, in December 1642. The Earl of
Newcastle stayed with Sir Richard Tempest, and looked down on this small town
from the hill above it. Bradford held out strongly, in spite of having no army
and no fortifications, and the Earl's temper was naturally not improved by
this.
We do not know which room the Earl occupied here, but it may have
been the small chamber over the parlour, with its large bay window and fine
painted plaster ceiling. The story tells that he was very cross, one Sunday
evening, at Bradford's continued resistance and, as he went to bed, declared
that the following morning he would slaughter every man, woman and child in the
place, in spite of this being against the general code of conduct for war. He
then went to sleep.
During the night the Earl was awakened by feeling the
bedclothes being pulled off him. By his bed stood a ghost, wringing its hands
and saying, "Pity Poor Bradford!" The Earl was suitably shaken and, the
following morning, said that he had changed his mind. He would still attack
Bradford, but would now only slaughter those who offered real armed
resistance.
Bradford was duly attacked, and taken by the Royalists. There
were very few casualties, probably less than ten, who died of wounds received in
the skirmishing.
The story of the ghost appears in a small booklet called
"An Historical Narrative of the life of Joseph Lister." Lister was a local man,
born in Bradford and spending his later life at Kipping, now part of Thornton.
He began to work as a servant, but spend most of his adult life as an
Independent dissenting preacher, although he was never ordained. He would
certainly have been able to write such an autobiography, but the earliest record
that we have of it is in a publication dated 1842. At that time there was a
fashion for family history, and the publisher proudly states his own connection
with the Lister family. We shall probably never know for certain whether it was
written in the 1640's or the 1840's, or at any time between. It would be nice to
find a reference to the ghost nearer the time that "she" is actually supposed to
have appeared!
This is ancient Bolling Hall, in Bradford, England. Over the years,
stories of the Bolling ghost have become legend.
Watch the picture...
have we captured the ghost? Keep watching, you'll see it!
