Haunted York — Part One, The Treasurer’s House

If you ask why I set my new paranormal series in York, of all places, I’d have to say, it couldn’t be set anywhere else. Even before the Romans settled in Eboracum or Eburacum, (with the first written record of this name in AD4), people lived in the Place of the Yew Trees or Eborakon, (as recorded by Ptolomy in AD2).

With all the temples, churches and graveyards of these people, it was always going to create a liminal space that touches on the spiritual world.

York is a haunted city.

When my historian husband left university, he worked for a time in the York tourist industry. He ran a ghost walk. By some counts, there are as many as 500 hauntings within the City Walls, and more in the surrounding area. That makes York the most haunted city in the UK, maybe even the World.

So, let’s start our Ghost Tour of York, in Roman Eboracum.

We’re in 1953, in the Treasurer’s House, in Minster Yard just North of the Grand Cathedral of York Minster. An apprentice plumber gets the worst jobs, and Harry Martindale was in the basement installing a new heating system.

Above the clanking contact of pipes and wrenches, Martindale heard a horn sounding in the distance. None of his business what the people upstairs were doing; he kept on with the job.

Until…

The head of a great cart horse appeared through the wall. Then the whole horse. Leading it was a soldier in Roman uniform. Instead of a gleaming breastplate and crisp tunic, he was battered, his clothes in rags. His shoulders sagged and his face was lined in despair. Then came the tramping feet. Behind these first apparitions marched a column of worn-down legionaries. Many of them used their spears as staffs to keep them upright.

But the oddest thing? According to Martindale, all of them were marching on their knees.

You may scoff, a lot of people did, but a later archaeological excavation in the cellar found a Roman Road, buried about 45 – 50cm below the current cellar floor. Exactly on the path where Martindale saw the Roman soldiers marching.

The current belief is that these were from the end of the Empire, men who had retired and married local women.

***

Eoforwīc, oldest of cities. Once called Ebrauc, in his father’s time.

Eboracum, by ancients who set out the roads,

Binding the horizon with strong lines of stone.

The work of giants, subduing the landscape.

Their time-served soldiers left service here.

Robbed rubble from the road, repaired the villas.

Lived here. Worked here. Stayed here.  

Excerpt from The Smith, translated from Old English by Caroline Walters in Her Borrowed Grave. More about my upcoming book here: https://vanessajknipe.wixsite.com/vanessa-knipe/my-new-book

***

The Roman Legions are not the only ghosts in the Treasurer’s House. The 17^th Century owner, George Aislaby is also said to keep an eye on the premises.

If you are visiting York, be sure to take in the Treasurer’s House, and remember the defeated legions trying to keep the peace as their world crumbled.