Burton Agnes Hall: some photos and more ghostly tales

From 'The Lady of Burton Agnes Hall - a ghost story of to-day' written and illustrated by Leonard Willoughby, in the Pall Mall Magazine, April 1906.

 In traditional tale, "As [Anne] neared St. John's Well she noticed two beggars lying on the grass by its side..." Also, "Her hand was at once seized, and an attempt made to draw off the ring, which caused the now thoroughly frightened Anne to shriek for help. "Stop that noise!" shouted the bully, dealing her at the same time a murderous blow on the head...

One Yorkshire chronicler, a few years ago, gave a personal experience of a correspondent who spent a night at the hall. He refers to the fact that some forty years ago John Bilton, a cousin of his own, came from London on a visit to the neighbourhood. Matthew Potter, a gamekeeper on the estate, residing at the hall, invited Bilton to spend th enight there. He mentioned, however, to his guest that the house was hauntedd, and that if he was frightened he should sleep elsewhere. Bilton, who was something of a daredevil, replied, "Afraid! Not I! I care not how many ghosts there may be in the house, so long as they do not molest me."

Potter told him of the skull and portrait of "Awd Nance" on the stairs and asked if he would like to see it  - the skull not just then being in the house. They passed to where the picture is hangin, and Potter held up the candle to show it. It was immediately extinguished, and could by no means be relit. Occupying the same bed, Bilton, unlike his bedfellow, lay awake, thinking in a sorely puzzled frame of mind over the tale of the skull, the extinguishing of the light and the impossibility of lighting it. About half an hour after, he heard a shuffling of feet outside the door, which he took to be made by the servants retiring to bed. But the sounds continuing and increasing, he nudged his befoellow and said, "What the deuce is all that row about?"

"Jinny Yewlats" (owls), replied his companion sleepily, and, yawning, went to sleep again. The noise now becoming uproarious, and as if ten or a dozen persons were rushing in and out of rooms and banging doors with great violence, he gave his friend another nudge, exclaiming, "Wake up, Matty! Don't you hear that confounded row? What does it all mean?"
"Jinny Yewlats," muttered Matty.
"Jinny Yewlats can't make such an infernal uproar as that," insisted poor Bilton.
Matty, now more awakened, listened, and said, "It's Awd Nance, but ar nivver taks nay notice tiv her," and he rolled over and snored again contentedly.

The staircase on which the painting hangs.

After this the fun grew fast and furious, a struggling fight seemed to be going on outside, and the banging of the doors reverberated in the passage like thunderclaps. He expected every moment to see the door fly open, and "Awd Nance" with a troop of ghosts come rushing in, but to his great relief no such thing happened, and after a while the noises ceased.

Now this John Bilton declares - and he was a fearnought, and a thorough disbeliever in the supernatural - that he never passed so awful a night before in  his life, and would not sleep another night in the place if her were offered the hall itself for doing so. Mr. Ross, the narrator, concludes by adding, that John Bilton was a thoroughly truthful man, who might be implicitly believed, and that he had the narrative from his own lips on the day following his strange experience.

The house is now at peace, for the skull is bricked up in a dark room behind the great screen in the Saloon; and no doubt, so long as it is allowed to remain undisturbed, so long will the inmates and guests of Burton Agnes Hall go undisturbed and unterrified.