A taster of the Otley Ghost Tour

With Halloween creeping up on us, here's a taster of the Otley Ghost Tour, a spine-chilling walk around LS21.

Transcript

00:00Good evening and welcome to Otley's Marketplace. My name is Spindle Shanks

00:08McScrew and tonight I shall be your guide. Otley is a borough older than both

00:15Leeds and Bradford, having been founded in 620 AD. I will be teaching you about

00:23the ghosts that still linger in Otley's pubs, churches and courtyards to this

00:30very day. Keep your eyes peeled as we wander around for those who perhaps

00:35aren't quite there. The tour begins here at Otley's Jubilee Clock. We will then

00:42venture down Kirkgate after learning about the ghosts that hide on the shop

00:49floor of the British Heart Foundation charity shop. Then we will be

00:55approaching the Navvies Memorial, the only sculpture dedicated to the lives of

01:02the brave Navvies who were responsible for building the railway systems here in

01:06the UK. We will be then meandering around the churchyard of the parish church

01:13where we will learn about a ghostly anecdote that took place there and here

01:19at the Black Bull pub. The Black Bull is the oldest pub in Otley and is well

01:27known for having been, as they say, drunk dry by Oliver Cromwell's troops on the

01:33eve of the Battle of Marston in 1644. Regulars often go there and feel their

01:40faces stroked by invisible fingers. We will be then going down one of Otley's

01:48ginnels and into the Bay Horse Court where I will tell you about Charlotte,

01:53one of the former landladies who lost her beloved child one fateful evening to

02:00the clutches of the River Wharf. We will be then walking down towards the River

02:06Wharf after hearing about the voice recordings and the cells in Otley's

02:12infamous courthouse. If you haven't run off in a hurried fright by this point on

02:18the tour, we will be completing it with miserable tales of Margaret Clitheroe

02:24and then finishing outside Thomas Chippendale's former school and Otley's

02:29original police station. I hope you have enjoyed this taster of the Otley ghost

02:34tour and I hope to see you one of the coming weeks in the flesh in Otley town.

02:42Tours run every Saturday at half-past 6 and 8 p.m. They last an hour. Dogs are

02:52welcome if they are brave and children and humans are tolerated also.