Kirkstall Abbey

The following tunnel legend was published in Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders by William Henderson (1879). ’A…..tale is told of Kirkstall Abbey, near Leeds. I give it in the genuine vernacular as it was told to my informant fifty years ago by the last survivor of the family of Ellis, who had lived for generations at a house now called the Abbey House, Kirkstall, but the proper name of which is the Bar Grange. “Th’ man war thrashing i th’ Abba lair, and at nooning a thocht he’d streckin his back, an when he gat out he saw a hoile under th’ Abba, an he crept in, and he fun an entry and he went doon it, and at bottom there was a gert house place. There were a gert fire blazing on t’ hart-stone, an in ae corner war tied up a fine black horse. And when it seed him it whinnied. An behind the horse was a gert black oak kist, and at top o’ t’ kist a gert black cock, an cock crawed. Th’man said to hissel ‘Brass in t’ kist, I’ll haesum on’t.’ An as he went up to’t, t’ horse whinnied higher and higher, and cock crawed louder and louder, an when he laid his hand on t’ kist t’ horse made such a din, an t’ cock crawed and flapped his wings, an summat fetched him such a flap on t’ side o’ his head as felled him flat, an he knowed nowt more till he came to hissel an he war lying on’t common in t’ lair, and never could he find the hoile under the Abba again.”

Kirkstall Abbey 1890s