Today we have a post from Library and Digital Assistant, Rashpal who has spent much time researching stories of haunted places around the city culminating in our new guide to some spooky Leeds locations. A link to the online version can be found at the end of this post or in our Research Guides section of the blog. You can also pick a guide up in person from the Heritage and Research department in Leeds City Library.

Every historic city has its secrets, but Leeds has a ghost story around nearly every corner! With such a rich and eerie history, what better time than the spooky season of October to explore some of these haunted locations of Leeds. With Halloween looming who doesn’t enjoy an autumnal evening walk passing by some ghostly buildings?!

For a while now I’ve been researching into these hauntings; delving into any Local History books I could find in the Heritage & Research department as well as the online Leodis photograph archive.  With the help of several Librarians, we have created a printed guide to bring this information together providing details of the key haunted places around Leeds. You can use this guide to get an idea of these paranormal hot-spots, and if you’re feeling brave maybe even visit a few of them and tick them off as you go along.  As well as the possibility of a supernatural encounter, you’ll also see some amazing heritage buildings and architecture of Leeds.

Whether you’re a visitor to our amazing city or have lived here all your life, chances are you’ve walked past and even been inside some of the cities most haunted places without even knowing the chilling stories hidden behind their walls.  We have stories of the ‘Yorkshire witch’ of Thackray Museum of Medicine, a piano playing by itself at City Varieties Music Hall, the spirit of a notorious murderer still present in the very cells that held him before his execution, and what exactly was the strange beast-like creature sighted on a city centre street? This still remains a mystery to this day…

Located just off the Headrow this courtyard was originally used as an area for target practice using longbows. The targets were called ‘butts’, which of course explains the streets name. Later this court became the home of the famous clock making company Potts Clocks, and at present is now office buildings. In 2005 the court made it into the headlines of a local newspaper when a man reported seeing a strange looking creature that he described as being bigger than a rat and having whiskers, round ears, front legs like a squirrel’s, muscular back legs, a thin tail and a glossy coat, The strange creature was also seen by workers in the nearby offices and has been nicknamed the Beastie of Butts Court!

Having a fascination with anything horror and supernatural related practically my entire life, I was thrilled to be involved in creating the guide and getting the chance to do a bit of digging into the city’s spooky and often quite macabre past.  I’ve also lived in Leeds my entire life, so it made it even more interesting reading about many places I was so familiar with. I remember even as a child hearing stories in the playground of the ‘Blue Lady’ of Temple Newsam which I found a bit scary but was also quite fascinated by. Funnily the school playground stories placed the Blue Lady in a local cemetery, and I remember a few classmates having wild stories of having seen her there! It was interesting to find out the more factual story of her origin, which can be found in the guide:

Built between 1500-1520 this impressive Tudor-Jacobean mansion has acquired a few supernatural guests over the years, including the famous ‘Blue Lady’ thought to be Mary Ingram a former occupant of the house who died after being robbed and then suffering a breakdown due to the stress of losing her favourite necklace. Her unhappy spirit is said to wander the house.

For more eerie stories like this about haunted Leeds be sure to pick up the new guides in the library or download here: Haunted Places of Leeds

Happy Halloween!