tion>
Sabine Baring-Gould
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents and Strange Events
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066064648
Table of Contents
THE GHOST OF TRINITY CHURCH, YORK
PETER PRIESTLY, THE WAKEFIELD PARISH CLERK
DAVID TURTON, MUSICIAN AT HORBURY
PETER BARKER, THE BLIND JOINER
THE TRAGEDY OF BENINGBROUGH HALL
THE REV. MR. CARTER, PARSON-PUBLICAN
JOB SENIOR, THE HERMIT OF RUMBOLD'S MOOR
NANCY NICHOLSON, THE TERMAGANT
JONATHAN MARTIN, THE INCENDIARY OF YORK MINSTER
MARY BATEMAN, WITCH AND MURDERESS
PREFACE.
A residence of many years in Yorkshire, and an inveterate habit of collecting all kinds of odd and out-of-the-way information concerning men and matters, furnished me, when I left Yorkshire in 1872, with a large amount of material, collected in that county, relating to its eccentric children.
A friend, when he heard that I was collecting such material, exclaimed, "What are you about? Every other Yorkshireman is a character!" Such is the case. No other county produces so much originality—and that originality, when carried to excess, is eccentricity.
I look back with the greatest pleasure to the kindness and hospitality I met with in Yorkshire, where I spent some of the happiest years of my life. I venture to offer this collection of memoirs of odd people, and narrative of strange events, as a humble contribution to the annals of the greatest, not perhaps only in extent, of our English counties, and a slight return for the pleasant welcome it afforded a migratory penman from the South.
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.
This book was well received in Yorkshire and elsewhere when it first appeared, and as it preserved notices of strong characters, records of whom were passing away, and some taken from Chap Books already become scarce, a new edition (the 4th) is issued thoroughly revised and only very slightly curtailed.
Lew Trenchard, 12th April, 1890.
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND INCIDENTS.
THE GHOST OF TRINITY CHURCH, YORK.
Some years ago I heard mention made of an apparition said to have been seen in Trinity Church, Micklegate, York, which at the moment excited my curiosity. But as I heard no more about it, it passed out of my mind.
In 1869 I was invited to deliver a lecture at Middlesborough, when I met a clergyman who introduced himself to me as an old acquaintance. We had not met for some years, and then he had been a boy at school. About a week after I left Middlesborough I received from him the following letter:—
I.
"Easter Sunday Evening, 1869.
"Dear Mr. Baring-Gould.
"I venture, from the slight acquaintance I am happy to have with you personally, and the deeper one I have with your tastes from external sources, to enclose for your perusal a narrative of a perfectly true event, drawn up by myself some few years ago, at the request of some friends who doubted the truth of the circumstances therein related. If you have ever heard anything of it, and can help me in explaining it, I shall be grateful, as it perplexes me, as one always is teased when something which one cannot account for has been brought to one's notice.
"Mr. S—— is going in a few Sundays to preach at the