Ghosts · Yorkshire

Awd Nance and the Skull That Must Stay

Burton Agnes Hall, between Bridlington and Driffield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Spooky: for older readers

In the days of Queen Elizabeth, three sisters inherited the estate of Burton Agnes, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. They were rich, and they thought a great deal of their family. The old house was falling down and out of fashion, and they decided to build a new hall that would outshine every mansion for miles around.

The youngest, Anne, could think, talk and dream of nothing else. She watched every wall rise and every carving take shape, and when the house was finished she could never stop admiring it.

Not long afterwards, Anne went to visit the St Quintins at Harpham, a mile away, and set off home alone at dusk with only her dog, singing as she went. By St John's Well two rough beggars were lying on the grass. She gave them some coins. Then they saw the ring on her finger, her mother's ring, and demanded it. When she refused, one of them seized her hand, and when she screamed, the other struck her on the head with his stick. Villagers came running and the men fled, but Anne was badly hurt. She was carried home, and in a few days she died.

Before she died, she made her sisters a promise. “Never shall I sleep peacefully in my grave,” she said, “unless I, or a part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts.” Her head was to be kept in the house, and never taken out of it. If anyone disobeyed, her spirit would make the house impossible to live in.

Her sisters promised, to calm her, but they had no intention of doing it. Anne was buried whole in the church.

A week later, as the household was going to bed, there was a tremendous crash upstairs. Nobody could find what had fallen. The next week, on the same night, every door in the house seemed to slam at once. The week after that, there was a sound like a crowd of people rushing along the galleries and up and down the stairs, and then groaning, as of someone dying. The maids ran away the next morning.

The sisters asked the vicar what to do, and remembered their promise. The coffin was opened, and Anne's head was brought back into the house. So long as it was left in peace, the house was quiet.

No plate yet. We are still looking for an old picture of this place.

What people said

  • The waggon that stuck. Once a maid threw the skull out of a window onto a passing cartload of manure. At that moment the horses couldn't move the waggon an inch, however hard the waggoner whipped them, until she owned up and the skull was brought back indoors.
  • Buried in the garden. One of the family had the skull buried in the garden, and the house rang with wailing and crying until it was dug up and put back.
  • “It's Awd Nance.” Ross was told of a London man, John Bilton, who stayed the night with his cousin Matthew Potter, the gamekeeper. When Potter held his candle up to Anne's portrait, it went out and wouldn't relight. All night there was a din of feet, scuffling and slamming doors in the passage. “Jinny Yewlats” (owls), mumbled Potter. Then: “It's Awd Nance, but ah nivver take any notice of her,” and he went back to snoring. Bilton said he would never spend another night there, not if he were given the Hall.

Other tellings

  • Ingram took the story from F. Ross's articles on Yorkshire legends in the Leeds Mercury, and Ross had some of it from a correspondent whose cousin was John Bilton. [TODO: dates of Ross's article]
  • In Ross's telling, Inigo Jones and Rubens worked on the house. The Hall itself names its architect as Robert Smythson.

What the history says

Burton Agnes Hall is a real house of the Tudor Renaissance. The family that lives there says its architect was Robert Smythson, master mason to Elizabeth I and builder of Longleat, Wollaton and Hardwick, and that the estate has never changed hands by sale since a Norman manor house was built there in 1173. [TODO: confirm the Griffith sisters and the date of the new hall]

The house is still a family home, open to visitors.

Go and See

Where
Burton Agnes, on the road between Bridlington and Driffield in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Access
In 2026 the house and gardens are open daily, 11am to 5pm, from 28 March to 1 November and from 14 November to 23 December. Hall and gardens: adults £18.50, children (4–15) £9.50, under-4s free. Pay on arrival or book online. The ground floor is wheelchair accessible, but the upper floors are not. Dogs on leads are welcome in the grounds.
Allow
Half a day for the house and gardens.
Families
A spooky tale with a violent death in it. The skull story may frighten young children.

Visiting details checked 25 October 2026 with Burton Agnes Hall, burtonagnes.com. Always check before you travel.

54.0536° N, 0.3168° W · Open in OpenStreetMap

Make a day of it

From our sister sites

The Name GeneratorsName a ghost of your ownEvery house ghost needs a nickname. Hers was Awd Nance.Acorn & InkPrint a day-out prep sheetGet children ready for a visit to an Elizabethan house.

Sources

  1. John H. Ingram, The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain (1884; illustrated edition 1897), “Burton Agnes Hall”, quoting F. Ross in the Leeds Mercury. Our main source. Internet Archive.
  2. Burton Agnes Hall, burtonagnes.com: the house's history and 2026 opening times and prices, checked 25 October 2026.

This is a legend, told as people told it. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.