Site in Focus - Windhouse, Yell
by Stephen Jennings
Many have called Windhouse on Yell the most haunted house in the UK, certainly the most haunted in Shetland. Numerous ghost stories have been attached to the property for a very long time and have been chronicled in several articles and blogs. There is a mistress or housekeeper, the lady in Silk, who allegedly fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Another ghost of a female servant has been witnessed climbing the stairs, the ghost of a man in a top hat and long coat passing through walls and it is said there is even a ghost dog.
So why all the restless spirits?
Well, many skeletons have been found around the property. In 1887 the skeleton of a tall man, perhaps the top hat ghost, was found at the back of the house. Another was found under slabs at the front door, said to be from the hidden body of a workman killed in a fight in 1801. More recently two skeletons were unearthed during excavations and were dated to the 13th or 14th century. They have also been found inside the house; the skeleton of a woman, perhaps the Lady in Silk, under the stairs in 1880 and a child wrapped in sheepskin found when workmen were repairing a window in the early 1900s.
It is also a haunted landscape!
The previous house from the 1600s, further upslope, was itself the scene of nefarious doings and deadly deeds which seemed to continue with the laird’s house built in 1707 and remodelled in the gothic style we see today circa 1885. A part of the house is built atop a burial ground associated with the Medieval kirk, entirely razed in 1822 and undoubtedly the source of some of the skeletons. In the surrounding landscape we have a heel-shaped burial cairn, several Bronze Age homesteads, one of which is said to have had a vessel with ashes dug out of it in 1867-68, a broch with associated buildings, possibly two longhouses and a farmhouse built in 1884.
That’s a lot of ghost potential!
To learn more of Shetland’s most haunted house we suggest you click on the links below, if you dare, and have yourself a haunted Halloween!
Adventure Shetland - Spooky Shetland
Ghost Weather - The Haunting of Windhouse on Yell
Shetland.org - Spooky Tales from Shetland
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Windhouse, © Vincent Tonner
Windhouse Coat of Arms, © Vincent Tonner
Earlie, the dog, and Earlie's Grave; our ghost dog? © Vincent Tonner
Past Site in Focus articles can be found in the Archive.