Knarsdale Hall

The Laird of Knaresdale Hall just south of Haltwhistle was a middle aged man, with not a lot to offer was given permission by her parents to marry a young beautiful wealthy girl, to which the girl did not agree. The marriage went ahead but due to the arguments it was not a happy marriage.

After awhile the girl seemed to calm down and to her husbands relief seemed to accept her life and her husband. This was not the case however, the girls change was because of an affair she was having with the Laird's handsome young nephew who had been brought up in the Hall along with his sister.

Their affair continued undiscovered for quite a while until one day his sister caught the lovers embracing. The sister had no intention of saying anything as she loved and wanted to protect her brother but that was not enough for the lovers, frightened she would tell the Laird they planned to kill her. The lovers chose a night when a storm was raging wildly outside to kill the sister.

The Laird was woken up by his wife who said she could not sleep for the noise of a door banging at the back of the house, she told him to send his niece to close the door. Not wanting to send his niece but wanting to please his wife, he stayed with his wife and his niece went to close the door.

Just as she was about to close the door, her brother who had been waiting for her pushed her into the overflowing pond and held her until she was dead, he then threw her body into the middle of the pond to sink. The Laird who was feeling guilty for sending his niece and worried she had not returned upstairs on such a stormy night was about to get up to go and find her, when his wife convinced him that she would be back in her room asleep. Not knowing that his wife and nephew had planned to murder his niece the Laird went back to sleep.

Awoken by the sound of his dogs howling the Laird sat up in bed to see his niece standing by the fire soaking wet and trying to wring the water from her long hair. As the Laird started to speak to her his niece disappeared. The nephew also disappeared that night never to be seen or heard of again.

It was said that the wife's guilty conscious caused her to suffer brain fever and when she started ranting and raving told some of what had happened to the niece. Due to what the wife had said the pond was searched and the body of the niece was found, not long after the wife now raving mad died. On the anniversary each year of her death the ghost of the Laird's niece can be seen moving from the rear door of the Hall to the pond, and the old door she had tried to close that night would burst open on its own and crash on its hinges.