A little northward of the road from Bradford to Leeds, four miles distant from the former and seven from the latter, lies the village of Calverley, the seat of a knightly family of that name for some 600 years. They occupied a stately mansion, which was converted into workmen's tenements early in the present century, and the chapel transformed into a wheelwright's shop.
Near by is a lane, a weird and lonesome road a couple of centuries ago, overshadowed as it was by trees, which cast a ghostly gloom over it after the setting of the sun. It was not much frequented excepting in broad daylight, and even then only by the bolder and more stout-hearted of the village rustics, whilst the majority would as soon have dared to sleep in the charnel-house under the church as have passed down it by night, or even in the gloaming. Instances were known of strangers having unwittingly gone through it, all of whom, however, came forth with trembling limbs and scared faces, their hair erect on their heads, and the perspiration streaming down from their foreheads. When questioned as to what they had seen, the reply was always the same, a cloudlike apparition, thin, transparent, and unsubstantial, bearing the semblance of a human figure, with no seeming clothing, but simply a misty, impalpable shape; the features frenzied with rage and madness, and in the right hand the appearance of a bloody dagger. The apparition, they averred, seemed to consolidate into form out of a mist which environed them soon after entering the lane, and continued to accompany them, but without sound, sign, or motion, save that of gliding along, accommodating itself to the pace of the terrified passenger, which was usually that of a full run, until the other end of the lane was reached, when it melted again into a mere shapeless mass of vapour.
The apparition was that of the disquieted soul of a certain Walter Calverley, which was denied the calm repose of death, and condemned to flit about this lane, as a penance for a great and unnatural crime of which he had been guilty. Various attempts were made to exorcise the restless spirit, but all were ineffectual until some very potent spiritual agencies were employed, which were successful in "laying the ghost," but only for a time, as they operate only so long as a certain holly tree, planted by the hand of the delinquent, continues to flourish, when that decays the ghost may again be looked for.
The Calverleys (originally Scott) were a family of distinction in Yorkshire from the time of Henry I. to the period of the great Civil War, intermarrying with some of the best families, and producing a succession of notable men.
John Scott was steward to Maud, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, and niece of Edgar the Atheling, the last scion of the Saxon race of English Kings; he accompanied her to England on the occasion of her alliance with King Henry I., and married Larderina, daughter of Alphonsus Gospatrick, Lord of Calverley and other Yorkshire manors, who was descended from Gospatrick, Earl of Northumbria, who so stoutly supported the claims of Edgar the Atheling to the crown of England in opposition to that of the usurping conqueror, William the Norman. By this marriage, John Scott became j.u. Lord of Calverley.
William, his grandson, gave the vicarage of Calverley to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin, York Cathedral, temp. Henry III.
John, his descendant, in the fourteenth century, assumed the name of de Calverley in lieu of Scott.
Sir John, Knight, his son, had issue three sons and a daughter, Isabel, who became Prioress of Esholt.
John, his son, was one of the squires to Anne, Queen of Richard II. He fought in the French wars, was captured there, and beheaded for some "horrible crime, the particulars of which are not known," and dying cæl, was succeeded by his brother, Walter, whose second son, Sir Walter, was instrumental in the rebuilding of the church of Calverley, and caused his arms—six owls—to be carved on the woodwork.