| Marple Hall |
The hall is said to be haunted by King Charles the I, and the daughter of a Roundhead, who was murdered by her father when she fell in love with a Cavalier during the English Civil War.
The murderer was called Henry Bradshaw; his daughter used to have a secret lover in the form of a royalist officer who came to the hall in secret. On one of his clandestine visits his presence was discovered, and a servant managed to drown him in the nearby river Goyt. The girl is said to have pined away through want of her lover and eventually died of a broken heart, returning as a sad spectre to haunt the hall and the banks of the river Goyt, where her lover was so treacherously murdered.
The brother of Henry Bradshaw was John Bradshaw whose name appears on the tribunal that led to the death warrant of Charles the I, probably the reason Charles is also thought to haunt the hall
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| Map ref: SJ9588 |
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| Wardley Hall, Worsley |
A skull kept in the hall is said to scream and cause poltergeist activity when it is removed. It seems as though the legend was invented in the 1930s to create a good story for the newspapers.
In tradition the skull was supposed to be that of Roger Downs who had his head cut off in a brawl on London Bridge, the head was brought back to the hall and the body was flung in the Thames. Roger was a restoration reformer, and his head was said to have been delivered to the hall in a wooden box. The story was disproved when his coffin was opened in 1779; his head it seems was still attached to the body.
The skull actually belonged to Father Ambrose Barlow, who was hung and quartered for his faith in 1641.
The full folk tale can be found in Lancashire Traditions by J. Roby, see also screaming skulls 
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| Map ref: SD 7500 |
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