Wycoller Hall - Ghosts at Wycoller

Ghosts At Wycoller

The phantom horseman

Wycoller and Wycoller Hall also became the site of several ghost stories. One such concerns the murder of the wife of one of the squires of the hall, one Simon Cunliffe. During the reign of King Charles II the squire and his hunt were pursuing a fox. The fox ran into the hall and up into the woman's chamber. The hounds pursued it and attacked it, with Simon Cunliffe riding his horse into the hall and up the stairs. Finding his wife terrified at the scene, he cursed her cowardice and raised his hunting crop as if to strike her. She then died of fright. The squire is supposedly still seen at night returning to the hall, dressed in the costume of the early Stuart era. The noise of his horse clattering across the bridge and up to the hall door, and then up the stairs can be heard, followed by a woman's screams. The ghost then returns the way he came. He supposedly is seen once a year, during stormy weather when darkness has fallen.

The murdered woman herself is recorded to have appeared once to two lovers at the hall. The ghost wore a black silk dress and foretold the downfall of the Cunliffes and the ruin of the hall. She was later seen by two workmen, but has not been seen since the death of the last Cunliffe of Wycoller. Despite the compelling nature of the stories, there never was a Simon Cunliffe as squire of Wycoller.

Black Bess

Another of the Cunliffes was said to have travelled to the West Indies, where he married a West Indian woman. On the return voyage he began to have second thoughts of the suitability of his marriage, so he threw his wife overboard, where she drowned. The ghost of the woman followed him back to Wycoller, in search of her murderer.