Ghost
The Bloody Footprint
A dead man came home, and left his mark.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- An Elizabethan stone manor house with an oak-panelled bedroom
- Legend from
- Gaskell (1857)
- Best time
- Winter dusk
- Tone
- Eerie
He walked up the stairs at dusk, and vanished, and left a bloody footprint.
Oakwell Hall in Birstall was built by John Batt in 1583. Its best-known legend concerns William Batt, the 25-year-old bachelor owner in 1684. Elizabeth Gaskell, in her Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), wrote that one winter dusk his family saw him stalk along the lane, through the hall and up the stairs to his room, where he vanished. He had been killed in a duel in London that same afternoon, 9 December 1684. Legend says he left a bloody footprint in the bedroom. Kirklees Council notes he was in London that day, borrowing money at the Black Swan, Holborn, and was buried at Birstall.