Highlow Hall lies between Abney and Hathersage and is reputed to be one of the most haunted buildings in Derbyshire. Reports range from apparitions of White Ladies, a phantom male who would take control of horse-drawn carriages, tables being mysteriously set as if for a meal for unseen guests to the ghostly appearance of a mother and child at the top of the stairs. The Hall is an Elizabethan Manor and the seat of a branch of the Eyre family. However, previous to this it belonged to the Archer family. The last male Archer descendant had two daughters and it was through the marriage of the younger of the daughters and Nicholas Eyre that the Hall came into Eyre hands.

The story goes that Nicholas Eyre set his sights on obtaining Highlow Hall and wooed both daughters and after pledging each one to secrecy he became betrothed to both. When the elder daughter found out that Nicholas had also been courting her younger sister she left Highlow and was never seen again. Nicholas married the younger of the two daughters and took possession of Highlow Hall but he was soon after confronted by the ghost of his sister-in-law (according to some reports she died in 1340). The ghost cursed him for his actions, blaming him for her death, but also cursed his descendents and predicted that although his sons would acquire great wealth ultimately the family would be ruined.

Although it took a few more hundred years this did come to pass and in 1842 the Eyre’s had nothing left. The White Lady is another ghost who has been seen on occasion at Highlow Hall however opinion seems to differ on whether this is the same ghost of the elder Archer daughter or of a different origin entirely. This particular White Lady has been seen crossing the old courtyard, entering the front door and climbing the old oak staircase ‘with a rustle of silken skirts’. There is another tale though of a lady who was murdered in one of the bedrooms at Highlow Hall. Bumps have also been heard on the staircase and it is thought that this is the phantom echo of her body being dragged along the landing and down the staircase to be secretly buried. Could this apparition and that of the Archer daughter be one and the same? Was the elder Archer daughter in fact murdered at Highlow Hall?