Ghostly goings-on at Sheffield’s Beauchief Hall on Abbey Lane have put the spooks among the sportsmen who use it. They report hearing a mysterious pianist in a top room which was later found to be empty, lights switched on and off, doors opening and closing of their own accord, and numerous strange bumps in the night.

In fact, they say it got so bad, a man who used to live in the flat there left because he couldn’t stand it there any more. And the noises are so mysterious, about 40 members of the De La Salle Old Boys Association organised a ghost vigil. They stayed up all night in the hall’s different rooms, but neither saw or heard anything from the “White Lady of Beauchief”.

The Ghost is reputed to be that of a young woman who committed suicide in the hall in the 1920’s when it was a family home. And so the story goes, she was a fine pianist. One De La Salle member said: “I’ve heard the piano playing several times. In fact I heard it just half an hour ago, very faintly, but it doesn’t scare me. “Sometimes we’ve locked up at night and the lights have come back on again when there’s nobody there. It’s worst in the ladies toilet. Doors have been opened and close when the place was empty.

But the White Lady if she does exist isn’t alone. The ghost of a monk has also been spotted by the ponds in the hall grounds. The hall was reputedly built with the stone from the old Beauchief Abbey.