oakwell hall haunting

a 2 hour visit just to check the place out,,i didnt stay long as it was full of school kids and very noisy ! it does however show signs of being genuinely haunted and a future investigation is on the cards..A legend concerns the ghost of William Batt, aged 25, a bachelor whose widowed mother, Elizabeth, lived at Oakwell. An account of the story was written by Mrs Gaskell in her Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Her account is as follows: "Captain Batt was believed to be far away; his family was at Oakwell; when in the dusk on winter evening, he came stalking along the lane, through the hall and up the stairs, into his own room, where he vanished. He has been killed in duel in London that very same afternoon of December 9th 1684." The legend says that he left a bloody footprint behind in a bedroom. The historical facts are that bond in the archives shows that Batt was at the Black Swan, in Holborn, London on 9 December where he borrowed money. Local diarist Oliver Heywood has two entries recording his death; one that he died 'in sport'; the other that he was 'slain by Mr Gream at Barne near London'. Batt was buried in Birstall on 30 December 1684