Spooky stories from the Yorkshire Dales

Oliver Bowerman • October 14, 2024

The Yorkshire Dales teems with ghost stories. Check out our article to read about 5 of our favourites.

With spooky season upon us, you might be in the mood for a ghost story or two. Well, the Yorkshire Dales is an area rich in tales of the supernatural.

Some of its ancient buildings are said to be haunted – Fountains Abbey, Bolton Abbey and Ripley Castle, to take just three examples.

But that's just the tip of the fright-berg. Read on for five spooky stories from our doorstep here at Stump Cross Caverns.

1. The ghosts of Greenhow Hill

Just up the road from Stump Cross Caverns is Greenhow Hill. It's a somewhat sleepy hilltop village. But once upon a time, it was a thriving lead mining community.

If it wasn't for Greenhow Hill, in fact, Stump Cross might not have been discovered. Two lead miners from the village were looking for a seam – but when their spades went through the earth, they uncovered our caves, filled with stalagmites and stalactites.

The lead industry rapidly declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You can see its legacy all over the Dales – tunnels, shafts, chimneys, industrial buildings and even the rusting skeletons of iron machinery.

But could there be a ghostly legacy, too? Some say the mines are haunted. On Greenhow Hill, for instance, numerous people have reported the disembodied sound of clogs on the road.

Ghosts or no ghosts, lead mining haunts the area – and here at Stump Cross, we're proud of our link to this fascinating industry.

2. Tom Taylor the Highwayman

Tom Taylor was a bandit. But he was no Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Instead, he terrorised his neighbourhood of Upper Nidderdale, murdering and robbing with abandon.

After each skirmish, he would hide his loot in a cave at How Stean Gorge – a cave that now bears his name.

In the end, Tom had his comeuppance. A group of vigilantes tracked him down and hanged him in the cave. But his ghost, they say, lives on…

3. The Coverdale Ghost Light

At the end of the 1930s, reports began to spread of a ghostly light appearing each year on the road into Coverdale. A local butcher named J. Pickersgill described it to the Yorkshire Post as follows:

"I have seen it two or three times. You pull up at the side of the road, which is narrow, expecting a car to pass you. It doesn't come and as soon as you start again, the light goes out and there is nothing on the road. Nearly everybody in the dale has seen it. There is a man at West Scrafton who has seen it more than anybody, and he is puzzled. It has been seen for years on this road but not always on the same stretch."

What neither Pickersgill nor the journalist mentioned is that Coverdale was the site of a ghastly murder. Could it be that the ghostly light was, well, a ghost?

Somewhere between Coverham Abbey and the nearby chapel, a ghost in a black lace shawl has been seen pacing up and down.

Believers say it's the ghost of a poor, beautiful girl from Coverdale who fell in love with a rich squire. They met by night, concealing their affair from their families and the village.

It didn't end well. A rival to the squire's affections told him the girl had been seen flirting with another man. He murdered her in a fit of rage and jealousy, before dumping her body in a shallow grave on the moor.

Could it be her ghost that the people of Coverham see on the outskirts of their village? We may never know…

4. The Barguest of Troller's Gill

There are many British folk tales about terrifying black dogs. The Barguest of Troller's Gill is one of the most monstrous.

Literary scholars have speculated that the Barguest was the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The story goes that its author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, visited his mother near Ingleton in the Dales. Did she tell him about the Barguest's reign of terror? Did he see the hound itself? Either way, the novel still has the power to thrill and chill to this day.

It's not just the Barguest that's said to haunt Troller's Gill. There's also talk of trolls, devils and other vicious creatures. Ramblers, beware…

5. Lonsdale George Hodgson of Dent

In 1715, the life expectancy for men was around 35. But Lonsdale George Hodgson of Dent died that year at the age of 94.

What could be the explanation for his longevity? Locals gossiped that he had made a Faustian pact or was in league with vampires.

He was buried in the churchyard at Dent – but Hodgson's story doesn't end there. Several people claimed to have seen him walking in the moonlight. Those same witnesses soon came to mysteriously sticky ends.

The townsfolk dug up Hodgson's body and drove a stake through his heart. They placed his coffin next to the church porch to ensure he was well and truly dead and would haunt the Dales no longer.

About the Stump Cross Halloween Trail

This Halloween half term at Stump Cross Caverns, we have our own spooky schedule in place. We invite you and all your family to join us in the shadowy depths of the caves, hunting for clues and solving the riddle. There are prizes to be won – are you brave enough to descend the 60 steps into the caves?

The same week, we're hosting a Stone Age workshop where kids can learn from experts about prehistoric tools, routines and survival techniques. They can even have a go at making Stone Age crafts.

Finally, you can join us for a cave adventure, navigating twisting passageways, uncovering indelible rock formations and learning of ancient mysteries hidden deep underground.

To make the most of your eerie excursion, book a Discovery Day package. This includes: