Derbyshire: Derbyshire's ghosts are exposed in Spectred Isle

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We’ve had This Sceptred Isle; now it’s the turn of This Spectred Isle – a new English Heritage book by Simon Marsden which takes us on a journey through haunted England. The morning after Halloween, we have been browsing through its pages to see what spooky goings-on are reputed to take place in Derbyshire.

Peveril Castle: Phantom dogs have been seen there

Bolsover Castle (above), where a spectral figure of a woman carrying a baby is regularly seen in the kitchen

NATURALLY, to be haunted, the building have to be old and look the part.

Simon Marsden has selected four places in Derbyshire which he deems worthy of inclusion in his book – two castle and three historic halls.

Peveril Castle, known locally as the Castle of the Peak and Sir Walter Scott’s inspiration for his famous novel, Peveril of the Peak, is his first choice.

“Perhaps Scott also knew about one of the castle’s ghosts – a knight in clanking armour who stalks the keep while his phantom horse waits below,” the book says.

“Weird blue lights sometimes illuminate the castle at night and evil ‘shuck’ pads about the precincts. These phantom black dogs are reported in all parts of the country and have different local names. Whatever they are called, however, their appearance means the same thing. Bad luck.”

Wingfield Manor, near Alfreton, with its magnificent high tower and great Gothic hall, is another natural choice. Perhaps the most famous ghost, says Simon, is that of Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt the ruins at certain times of the year – although, ironically, when she was alive she couldn’t wait to leave the place.

However, the book goes on, “her imprisonment must have been quite lax because it is said that Sir Anthony Babington used to steal into the house under cover of dark to plot her escape and the downfall of Elizabeth.

“He blackened his face with walnut juice so that he could pass as a common man and carried a few nuts in his pocket for the purpose. Legend has it that one night a walnut fell from his pocket and grew into the magnificent tree in the courtyard.

“Many people have reported seeing strange blue lights flickering in the undercroft and there is also an intriguing murder mystery known as The Curse of Wingfield Manor.

“When some papers were recently discovered in the manor, they told the tale of a local girl named Mary who went to work as a maid there in 1666.

“Mary was in love with a young farmer and she made the fatal mistake of revealing her passion to Fanny, another maid from the village (who was also in love with him)...

“Mary arranged to go home to get consent from her family for the wedding but she never arrived.

“On her deathbed, Fanny confessed that she had lured Mary into the dim recesses of the undercroft and locked her in. Sure enough, when this was investigated, Mary’s skeleton was discovered huddled at the top of the steps behind the locked door.

“Whatever the truth of the story, ghostly activity is meant to be the reason why the manor was left uninhabited and finally fell into ruins.”

Bolsover Castle, once the home of Sir Charles Cavendish, whose family owned Chatsworth, is reported to have a fairly active ghost in the domestic quarters.

A spectral figure of a woman carrying a baby is regularly seen in the kitchen.

“She obviously cares deeply about the child because she very carefully lays it down before disappearing. But, inexplicably, she puts it in the fireplace,” the book recounts.

A local legend claims that the devil was in Bolsover one day and decided to have his hooves shoed by the local blacksmith. Unfortunately, the blacksmith drove a nail into the soft part of the devil’s hoof, who took off with a scream of agony. As Chesterfield church was in his way, it received the full force of one of his frenzied kicks – which accounts for its twisted spire!

Hardwick Old Hall, home of the remarkable Bess of Hardwick, is also said to be haunted, though not by Bess herself but by Thomas Hobbes, the renowned philosopher, mathematician and writer, who was apparently companion and tutor to the Cavendish family for many years. He died at Hardwick in 1679.

The book says people have also seen a monk in the grounds with a shining white featureless face.

Not far away, Sutton Scarsdale Hall, near Chesterfield, is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a sobbing lady, who glides between the hall and nearby St Mary’s Church.

She is believed to be the wife of Sir Nicholas Leke who, when he was summoned to the Crusades, broke his ring in two, giving one half to his wife and keeping the other as a sign of their love and loyalty.

Captured and incarcerated for many years, he kept himself going by thinking of his wife and praying they would be reunited.

Then, one night, a rushing wind picked him up and dropped him by the church door near his home.

But no-one would go near the strange, filthy figure who begged them for aid until eventually a good Samaritan took his broken ring to the hall and gave it to Lady Leke.

He failed to recognise the grey-haired woman who went rushing to the church until she folded him in her arms and he realised it was his long-lost love.

A later member of the Leke family, a staunch Royalist, was said to be “so depressed by the execution of Charles I in 1649 that he had a grave dug in the grounds of the hall and, every Friday, dressed himself in sackcloth and lay in the grave to contemplate the vagaries of human fortune”.

This Spectred Isle by Simon Marsden with words by Val Horsler and Susan Kelleher is priced £12.99.