Ghosts & Hauntings · Clegg Hall area, near Littleborough, Greater Manchester, England · Legend set in the medieval period; collected in the nineteenth century
Clegg Hall’s boggarts demand a body and a soul before they will leave the household in peace. A resourceful monk supplies a cock’s body and a shoe’s sole. The bargain is one of the best-known details in a Lancashire tradition which also contains a murdered inheritance, changing numbers of ghosts and an openly acknowledged literary retelling.
An old site and a later hall
Ingram’s source places Clegg Hall northeast of Rochdale and distinguishes an earlier house from a rebuilding attributed to Theophilus Ashton around 1620. That distinction matters because the legend is set in a much earlier residence. A present building can occupy the traditional site without being the exact structure in which the alleged crime occurred.
The nineteenth-century account also describes changing uses, including an ale-house and accommodation for working people. These are descriptions from the collector’s own period, not a statement of the property’s present use. The hall’s story developed within a changing local landscape rather than a house frozen permanently in its medieval condition.
The children and their inheritance
The core tradition concerns two orphan children entrusted to an uncle. Wanting their estate, he kills them. One collected version has them thrown from a balcony into a moat; a ballad associated with William Nuttall instead places their deaths in bed with a dagger.
The source itself acknowledges that the incident is not precisely dated, placing it broadly in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The competing methods and vague chronology belong to the legend’s history. They should not be converted into a precise medieval murder record merely because the story has survived for a long time.
Who are the boggarts?
The collected material does not agree on a single identity. One writer reasons that a solitary boggart might be the guilty uncle, unable to rest after his crime. Other local accounts insist on two spirits and connect them with the children. Nuttall’s ballad adds demons and a saintly intervention.
These differences are revealing. The same disturbance can be explained as a murderer’s punishment or the victims’ return. Ingram preserves the argument rather than concealing it. A useful case file can therefore show the reader the alternatives without choosing an identity unsupported by a named encounter.
The bargain with the monk
Local people ask a pious monk to lay the ghosts. He enters into a parley, while the gathered spectators cannot themselves see the spirits. Told that the price of quiet is a body and a soul, they fear that one of them must be sacrificed.
The monk answers the demand through wordplay. A cock supplies the body, a shoe the sole. The spirits are forbidden to return until the whole offering is consumed. The humour is inseparable from the supernatural bargain: the apparent demand for human life is evaded by taking the words literally in a different sense.
The laying does not end every telling
Ingram’s account says the boggarts continue to be reported despite the first laying. It leaves open whether the offering has been consumed or whether the bargain failed because its intention was not met. The story can therefore finish with a clever rescue while still explaining why the house remains haunted.
The source also makes its literary history unusually explicit. Wilkinson distinguishes the traditional material from the romantic narrative which John Roby wove from it, and names Nuttall as a contributor. That is valuable information about how a short local tradition becomes a much fuller published tale.
A Lancashire tradition on the map
The pin marks the hall area, with no claim to locate a surviving moat, a particular bedroom or a place where the monk’s offering can be found. The old and new buildings remain separate in the written account. Current access cannot be inferred from a Victorian description of an ale-house.
Clegg Hall belongs beside other cases where a haunting is controlled through conditions, promises or a difficult bargain. Its distinctive feature is that the collector lets readers see the story being made: different ghosts, different deaths, a ballad, a romantic expansion and a pun which keeps the local tale alive.
Timeline
- Medieval setting — the two heirs’ deaths in the undated tradition.
- Around 1620 — later hall construction in the collected building account.
- Nineteenth century — Nuttall, Roby and Wilkinson preserve and reshape the narrative.
- Later nineteenth century — Ingram sets out the variants and the monk’s bargain.
Sources & further reading
John H. Ingram, Haunted Homes, “Clegg Hall”, pages 402–406 — Public-domain historical compilation. The narrative and its named earlier sources are distinguished from independently established events.
Location reference — Hall-area reference; the medieval house, moat and precise alleged crime location are not authenticated by this pin.
Related UKPX cases
Calverley Old Hall: Walter’s headless ride, a minister’s bed and the bell at one o’clock
The Drummer of Tedworth: Mompesson’s household, the confiscated drum and Glanvill’s watch
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026.