Dave Weldrake: Stories and Legends of KIrkstall Abbey

Stories and Legends of Kirkstall Abbey

Stories fulfil a need. If they no longer appear relevant to the people who tell them, such tales will wither and die. This is the case with stories and legends concerning Kirkstall Abbey. In the nearly 900 years of its existence it has accumulated many such tales – ghosts, murder, lost children, buried treasure and secret tunnels to mention but a few. Some are still being told. Others are largely forgotten.

Dave Weldrake, archaeologist and folklorist, knows Kirkstall well. In the 1990s he helped supervise archaeological excavations in the Abbey grounds. The talk takes the form of a virtual tour of the Abbey and its environs in which Dave revisits these stories and discusses the social context which gave rise to them.