16/12/2021
Interesting stuff!
If you believe in such things, 10 Sheep Street is probably the most haunted building on Skipton’s High Street, with at least two ‘confirmed’ sightings of ghosts. The interesting thing is that all these ghost appear to be from the same family, the Chamberlains.
The Chamberlains were one of the most prominent families in the town. They were cotton spinners timber merchants and ironmongers. The family first took occupancy of 10 Sheep Street in 1713 when George Chamberlain married Mary Haworth nee Banks, the recently widowed wife of Peter Haworth, an apothecary. We’ve come across George Chamberlain previously; he was not a man to be trifled with. In May 1723 he appeared in the Court Leet records. He was fined £5 for "having given insolent and abusive language to the steward of this Court Leet during the sitting.” Unfortunately, no further details were given, so we will never know what caused him to be so angry as to disrupt court proceedings in such a way. In October 1723 he was again fined by the court - this time for refusing to take up the office of constable.
We don’t know if this anger was hereditary, but perhaps he, and his descendants, who lived in this house for over 140 years, all carried the same fury in life and death, resulting in restless sleeps that caused to them to remain on this earthly realm and haunt the living. George Chamberlain’s son Abraham was the first to be seen after he was buried, haunting the Mill in Eastby, which he built, long after it had closed. Some of you may recall that we first met the second Chamberlain, last year in our Christmas Eve Facebook post where we related a tale that featured in the Craven Herald in 1900 by journalist and historian R. B. Cragg. On that occasion, the ghost of William Chamberlain so terrified a young lad, John Hogg, working in a joiner’s workshop that he fled leaving a fire unattended with almost fatal results.
Another mysterious event occurred at 10 Sheep Street in March 1853 as reported in the Craven Herald: “On Tuesday evening last as Mr John Cragg was conducting a sale in the kitchen of the house lately occupied by the Misses Chamberlain in Skipton, part of the floor gave way, and a number of men and women were precipitated into the cellar beneath”. Happily no-one was seriously hurt, but we’ll never know if the hole in floor was caused by one of the ladies’ late ancestors in the form of a poltergeist, angry that the property had recently been sold to James Hallam (of Hallam’s Yard fame), or due poor building maintenance.
That was back in Victorian times but it seems another, or perhaps the same, Chamberlain was still making his nocturnal perambulations in the 20th Century! The Craven Herald for 20 December 1979 takes up the story: 'Preedy’s bookshop, formerly Waterfall’s, at 10 Sheep Street, Skipton, has a long history of hauntings dating back to the 18th Century. Some years ago Mr. Arnold Waterfall and his wife, Phyllis, lived at the shop. One night when Mrs Waterfall’s sister was staying at the shop, she woke the house saying that she had seen a ghost in the room. She was so frightened that Mrs Waterfall stayed in the room with her to keep her company. Half-an-hour later both Mrs Waterfall and her sister came out of the room after seeing the ghost of a bearded man. They would not go back to the room.'
The Chamberlains have yet to make a recorded appearance in the 21st Century, but 10 Sheep Street is now occupied by Skipton’s branch of WHSmith, and perhaps they can enlighten us. Do magazines randomly fall off the shelf onto people heads? Are you always putting out fires that appear from nowhere? Does the floor regular fall in… enquiring minds need to know…
Here’s 10 Sheep Street as Preedy’s Bookshop and Stationers, taken around Christmas 1980 as they were in the process of having the sign changed. Is that a ghostly figure standing in the middle of shop, or just a normal customer...
