大象传媒

By day, Shibden Hall's a popular place to visit. For years it's been somewhere for parents to take their bored kids at half-term, or for end-of-their-tether teachers to take their classes for a day out. After all, it's one of the oldest houses round these parts with a history that goes back to 1420 - that's almost 600 years for its old inhabitants to have made their mark on the place! But now, in the 21st Century, is it possible that Shibden's previous owners might also be visiting their former home during the hours of darkness to find out how their old, er, haunts have changed over the years? Scarily, the Hall is certainly said to take on quite a different character to what you or I might have experienced there during daylight hours - at least according to people who work there...

Tony Sharpe: "I keep an open mind!"

"You see things out of the corner of your eye," says Shibden Hall attendant of 26 years standing Tony Sharpe. "I've heard noises, we hear creaks and groans - I put them down to my knees now! - but it is a different atmosphere at night. It's completely different if you have to stay over. I once spent six nights here by myself and it was a different world, a different atmosphere all together."

In other words, while daytime often sees the sun shining brightly through the stained glass of Shibden Hall's housebody - the big room at the heart of the Hall - once dusk takes over it's as if all those centuries of history are just that bit closer at hand. Spooky stuff, says Tony, but it's just something the people who work there have to get used to: "I know the former curator once said she'd seen a cat walk through the wall of her office! Now, she's a fully-qualified vicar so she wasn't making it up. I've never seen any figures but I've heard voices and I've heard footsteps. We smell lavender and fresh pipe tobacco as though someone's just lit a pipe. You wouldn't go into a room and think that somebody's been smoking there, but you'd walk through a space and suddenly be aware, 'What was that?' Then you go back and it's gone. That's at the cellar head and at the bottom of the tower as well."

In fact Tony's not immune to weird things happening at Shibden Hall himself. He tells of one strange and spooky experience he had there quite recently: "The worst thing that happened to me was earlier on this year. I was opening the side gate and it was dark - about half past seven in the morning. I was suddenly aware of this big black shape above the left of my head. There was DEFINITELY something there. It was weird. I wasn't a bird or anything like that, it was just like a big black cloak. It was quite frightening."

Spooky: Carved face @ Shibden

With that in mind, Tony says it can't be denied that sometimes, just sometimes, there are odd, unexplained things to be seen or heard at Shibden Hall: "I do keep an open mind about them. I'm not saying they do exist or not but you can only say what you've experienced yourself. That's why my hair's grey now...But I do think if there is anything then it's Caspar the Friendly Ghost! I don't think there's anything malevolent. I do feel there's something, but it's in the fabric of the building - the people who've lived here for 600 years or so. I think they've left something in the building itself. I'm not saying there are poltergeists or anything like that, but it's definitely an atmosphere. It's not a bad one, though. I think it was a happy house!"

For more information about Shibden Hall, visit the website @ calderdale.gov.uk by clicking on the link below!