Is Beverley a hot bed of supernatural activity?

With help from Beverley’s former Ghost Busters, we explore some of our towns most haunted hot spots.

According to several social media posts of late, ghost sightings are increasing in Beverley. This comes after a local vicar described the town as ‘one of the most haunted in England’.

With its ghost walks and various books on the subject, the town has a reputation for spooky goings on. Whilst we don’t have a marshmallow man trundling down Flemingate, as in the 80s classic Ghost Busters, Beverley did have its own pair of experts from that era who you would call if you had something to say about ghosts.

Legends Peter Robinson and Paul Hesp took a close interest in the town’s paranormal activity and produced three magnificent books on the subject. By day they managed the Picture Play House, by night, they were Beverley’s own ghostbusters, uncovering stories of ghosts and hauntings from Beverley and East Riding.

In this piece, we honour their work by listing some of Beverley’s most haunted buildings featured in their book. And we leave it to you, inquisitive reader, to make up your own mind if you believe them.

Many of these tales are rooted in Beverley’s long history as first a celtic, then medieval and finally the Georgian town it is today. Beverley dates back to the ancient Kings of Northumbria in the 8th century AD. A lot has gone on here during the last 1300 years. Beverley has risen and fallen and risen again. Industries have come and gone, and with them, the lives and deaths of many poor souls.

By 1250, Beverley was an important town, supplying much of England’s textiles, with a stature superior to both Hull and York. But by the 16th century, it faced a crisis. Black death, conflict, and the long darkness of the middle ages saw decline, dereliction and decay ravage the town and the population dwindled.

In 1550 houses went to ruin; farmlands were overgrown and poverty and illness visited those that were left. For two hundred years the town was in darkness. But in the 18th Century, as the Georgian era began, our fortunes changed and Beverley emerged as the market town it is today.

During these thousand or more years, many have passed through this patch of land. Druids, Celts, Vikings, Friars, and many more have all come here and perhaps left their spiritual mark.

Great buildings have risen and fallen but many still remain. Beverley Minster, St Mary’s, The Friary, North Bar, Lairgate Hall, and the pretty lines of tall shops on Saturday Market, Toll Gavel and Butcher Row. We have ale houses and hotels from the time of Dick Turpin, and the famous remains of the mills of Beverley Westwood.

It’s most often from these old and ancient buildings, their back rooms, dark nooks, secret passages and narrow corridors where the stories of ghosts emerge.

Paul Robinson and Peter Hesp documented the ghosts of our history with many believing they are still with us today. There has been a recent increase of ghost sightings reported on social media. Is it just wild imagination? Or real occurrences, when figures from the town’s past reach forward to be felt in the present? Imprints of the past unable to rest in their own century here with us now?

Well, if you want to see a ghost, (or avoid one), here you are, eight of the most haunted places in Beverley according to the works of Peter Robinson and Paul Hesp some decades ago.

The old Fire Station

The old fire station on Albert Terrace is the setting for one of the most mysterious stories of Robinson and Hesp’s book. A senior fire officer is alone one night in the 1970s. Sitting at his desk in the station, he became very uneasy. It is written that he suddenly became aware of a mysterious figure in the room with him. The figure began to move towards him. It passed him by and proceeded to walk through the wall of his office. The book recounts that over the years many fire officers saw the same figure or often felt unease when alone in the building at night.

Ghost experts say buildings that witness supernatural occurrences have often been the venue of a tragedy of some sort in the past. And indeed, the book describes that the building, which is now of course doctors’ surgery, was once used as a temporary army barracks during the First World War. It tells of an incident where a soldier was found brutally murdered by his comrade after an argument had taken place.

The story goes on to say that such was the unease in the building, officers alone on duty at night would often have to ‘comfort themselves with a shotgun by their side’.

Try not to think of this story dear reader the next time you are marooned in the waiting room of the Fire Station surgery.

Norwood House

This grade 1 listed Georgian classic will sit happy in the memories of many locals, as for years Norwood House formed part of Beverley High School. But few will have attended the school without hearing the tales of ghosts and hauntings across its four rambling floors.

One teacher from the 1980s said the feeling of unease and dread increased the higher up in the building you climbed. Indeed, by the 1990s, rooms at the top of Norwood House were abandoned. Though it’s the library room at the rear of the building where most pupils in the last 50 years have described seeing something unusual.

In Robinson and Hesp’s book, the ghost is described as a little girl who has been seen by many people over the years. She apparently lived there when the house was the home of a local aristocrat and his family. She loved to run around the rambling corridors, jumbled up as they are. The book records that one day, as she was been chased by her siblings, she slipped tragically through a false door and fell to her death.

In the past 20 years, the building fell into disrepair and has required extensive restoration. During this process, stories emerged again of a great feeling of unease and sightings of the ghostly figure in the library.

Beverley Arms

The fabulous Beverley Arms Hotel dates back to the 18th Century. Highwayman Dick Turpin is said to have stayed there in 1738 when appearing before the town’s magistrates. In its original heyday, Beverley Arms served as a posthouse and an important meeting place for businessmen and farmers.

Hotels are always crammed full of people and happenings and many say their spiritual energy remains long after they have gone. If we consider the tens of thousands, if not millions of people who have visited, dined or stayed at Beverley’s Arms over the centuries, then such a place must exist as a kaleidoscope of spiritual energy? It’s not surprising so many ghost stories have emerged from the hotel.

The story recorded by Robinson & Hesp is truly terrifying. It is of a young employee, new to his post in the kitchen at Beverley Arms. Late one evening in the 1960s, after his shift he returned to his room and fell asleep. In the early hours of the morning, he reported waking to see ghostly women, white-faced and shrieking at the foot of his bed. She wore a long red dress. So terrified was the man, he fled the hotel and the next day quit his new job, never to return there again.

Beverley Arms has recently gone through an extensive and beautiful renovation and it is thought the room in the story no longer exists.

Browns

It’s now Browns department store but is known to generations as the Corn Exchange in Saturday Market. Another unique building from the 19th century and the sight of an earlier building dates back much further.

It is the author Peter Robinson himself who tells this story. Peter was the manager of the building from the 1970’s onwards when it became the much-loved Beverley Picture Playhouse. Peter writes a first-hand account of an ongoing ghostly presence of what he deduces is Mr Ernest Symmons, the well-respected and much-loved former owner and Peter’s long-time mentor. He records several occasions when he would be working late at night in the back office or high up the projection room. A hand or leg would appear in the corner of his eye. The figure is clothed unmistakably as he remembers Symmons would dress, “in gingery brown herringbone tweed with deep turn-ups”. These frequent occurrences would comfort Peter and were just part and parcel of working at the playhouse. However, the author recalls two far more terrifying incidents that occurred in the building.

Very late at night, his colleague Adrian Moore falls asleep in the pay office. Knowing he is a man ‘in need of sleep’, Peter leaves him to rest, but on returning Moore is pale-faced and startled like he was in a trance. He takes some time to come around and is taken to a comfy seat in the auditorium. Upon gaining his composure the Moore tells of a sighting of the unmistakable figure of Ernest Symmons standing fully before him. Not being used to the presence of a Ghost in the way Peter Robinson had become, Moore takes some time to recombobulate.

In a later episode, Peter summons the services of a medium who seems, according to the book to become temporarily and violently possessed by a spirit. She also lapses into a deep trance and is startled and scared but sees a glorious vision. She eventually comes around but is unable to recall or explain her revery.

The Guildhall

Beverley’s guildhall has served the town since the 1700s as a parlour for the mayor, the site of council meetings and as a magistrate’s court. Boasting Italian design from the studios of Giuseppe Cortese who moved to East Yorkshire in the 18th century, its exterior was enhanced by the portico columns to the front in 1832. Over the years there have been a number of stories emanating from the Guildhall and many of them have a similar theme. Robinson and Hesp recall episodes of disturbances to the electrical switches in and around the loft area above the mayor’s parlour. Tradesmen have complained that their equipment is often mysteriously switched off at the plug, though they believed they were working alone in the building. Always when this happens the smell of cigar smoke pervades the area?

The Friary

It is not known which part of Beverley’s Friary building if any, is completely original. Evidence of a friary on this plot of land given to the Friars by the Arch Bishop of York dates back to 1240. Like many denominations, the Dominican Friar’s fortunes changed over the years. What is known is that many records have been made of supernatural activity within its walls and grounds. Robinson and Hesp list stories involving a ghost friar emerging from a secret passage said to link the Friary to Beverley Minster and the terrifying story of the headless monk who is said to roam out along Friars Lane just after midnight.

The Sun Inn

Nearby to the Friary is the Sun Inn. Possibly dating back to medieval times, this local favourite boasts its fair share of ghostly stories. The authors, in this case, spoke in-depth to a former landlady many will recall as Denise. Denise told of occasions where she would feel a presence, or feel like someone or something had brushed past her, yet when she would look up, no one was there. Legend has it that the Sun Inn provides a junction point in the fabled secret underground passage from Beverley Minster to various sites in the town. When new owners took over in 1987 they were convinced there was a ghost of some kind in the cellar, so much so they become reluctant to venture down there alone. Once again, stories emerged of a presence, the sound of breathing and the sense of being watched was often all pervasive late at night in certain areas of the building. It would be worth popping down to the Sun Inn sometime soon for a pint. Anyone interested in ghost hunting could justifiably call it research.

Beverley Minster

The cornerstone of Beverley for over 1000 years, The Minster boasts the largest number of ghost stories and alleged sightings of any building in the town. Two that are translated by our authors Peter Robinson and Paul Hesp are curious enough to warrant a mention here. Firstly, there is a well-known ancient ballad that recounts the visitation of two ghostly sisters who were laid to rest in the minister’s south aisle. If you head to that very spot today you will find a plain unmarked slab of marble on the Minster’s floor. The ballad suggests that each Christmas Eve the ghosts of the sisters (said to be the daughters of Earl Puch who created the original priory on which the minister stands) appear. In the moonlight, they move ‘hand in hand with noiseless step’ through the aisle until morning when they ‘flee like visions of light away’.

The second is equally obscured in history. It is said that during the English Civil war troops loyal to Oliver Cromwell decamped to Beverley. The house on Lairage where they lodged still bears the name ‘Cromwell House’ today. Robinson and Hesp tell of an occasion when the troops tried to gain access to Beverley Minster by firing shots at its great West Door. At that very moment, a vision appeared of the ghost of St John of Beverley to ward them off. The book ads that in the 19th Century Sir Gilbert Scott was responsible for the restoration of the West Doors. It was Sir Gilbert who then found the bullets still firmly embedded in great churches door.

Happy hunting.