Kraster and Dorothy Cook owned a small farm near Troutbeck; it overlooked Lake Windermere in Westmorland (long ago, changes to county boundaries transferred the village and its outlying areas to Cumbria). The couple worked hard, lived simply and were happy.

Much of the land adjoining their farm was owned by a wealthy man, Myles Phillipson - a grasping social-climber. Despite his fine possessions and great riches, Phillipson harboured a burning ambition. He wished to build for himself and his family a magnificent new house that would impress his upper class cronies and display his status.

Phillipson wanted to erect his new house on the site of Kraster Cook's little cottage - a beautiful location with wonderful views of the lake and the fells beyond. He tried many times to persuade Kraster and Dorothy to sell their farm. Each time they refused. The bid was increased; bigger and bigger sums of money were offered - amounts Phillipson thought only fools would refuse. But the Cooks valued something more than money: their happiness on the farm they loved. At last Phillipson's thwarted ambition turned sour. He swore to gain the Cooks' land by hook or by crook...whether the farmer was alive or dead. It is said that his beautiful, but unscrupulous wife devised the plan which eventually brought disaster to all the Phillipson family.

A week before Christmas Phillipson visited the Cooks' cottage. He was charming and friendly. He had decided, he said, to build his new house on his own land. He could see the Cooks were determined not to sell and who could blame them? No one would willingly move from such a perfect place! He hoped that Dorothy and Kraster would let bygones be bygones, forget the angry words of the past and remain friends. To show his goodwill, Phillipson invited them to dinner on Christmas Day.

Of course, Dorothy and Kraster were delighted to hear that their powerful and influential neighbour had given up the idea of buying their land. But they hesitated before accepting the invitation. They knew they'd feel out of place and uncomfortable at Phillipson's grand house and in the company that would be present. However, to show their renewed friendship and so as not to offend him, they politely accepted.

Christmas Day came, Dorothy and Kraster dressed in their best clothes and set off for the Phillipson mansion. Their host and hostess made a great show of trying to put them at their ease; but Dorothy and Kraster were like fish out of water. They sat awkwardly with the other guests, speaking only when they were spoken to and saying very little.

Dinner was served. On the dining-room table, opposite Kraster, stood a silver bowl (some accounts say it was a cup). The poor farmer, perhaps as much to avoid conversation as to admire its beauty, stared at the expensive object as he ate.

After a while there came a pause in the conversation. Out of the silence Mrs Phillipson said loudly to Kraster: 'I see you are admiring that bowl, Mr Cook. It is indeed worth looking at !'

Every eye in the room seemed to be turned on Kraster as he mumbled some polite reply about his hosts' good taste. Other guests commented on the beauty and value of the ornament before the conversation passed on to different subjects.

When dinner was finished, the guests went off into other rooms to dance, talk and play Christmas party games. But not Dorothy and Kraster. They waited about in the dining-room until they could discreetly take their leave. Free at last from the ordeal, they walked back with relief to more familiar surroundings.

Some time during the next day, a troop of soldiers marched up to their farmhouse. They had orders, they said, to arrest Dorothy and Kraster. Without any delay or explanation, the bewildered couple were carried off to jail and locked in separate cells.

For a week the farmer and his wife were not allowed to communicate. They next met, confused and shocked, in court. Only then did they learn why they had been arrested. They were accused of stealing the bowl Kraster had noticed on Phillipson's table.

It was on the order of the local Magistrate that they had been arrested. It was the local magistrate who tried them now. That magistrate was Myles Phillipson.

The first and chief witness was Phillipson's wife. She stated that the stolen bowl had been on the table during Christmas dinner in her house. Kraster Cook, she said, had sat opposite the bowl and gazed at it throughout the meal. Indeed, went on Mrs Phillipson, she had mentioned the bowl to him during dinner. Many other guests had heard the conversation and some of them were called to testify. Each one supported Mrs Phillipson's account.

Then came two servants from the Phillipson household. They swore that they had seen the Cooks lingering in the dining-room while the other guests were dancing after dinner.

The bowl itself was exhibited. Two of the soldiers who'd siezed Dorothy and Kraster gave evidence. They falsely claimed that a search of the Cooks' cottage had uncovered the missing item.

Asked if they had anything to say in their own defence, the dumbfounded prisoners could do nothing but flatly deny the charge against them.

In those days theft was punishable by death. So it was that Myles Phillipson, Magistrate, could and did sentence Dorothy and Kraster Cook to be hanged by their necks until they were dead.

Only now did Dorothy Cook find strength and words to speak. In a loud voice that echoed round the courtroom she cried out:

'Look out for yourself, Myles Phillipson. You think you have done a fine thing. But the tiny lump of land you lust for is the dearest a Phillipson has ever bought or stolen. You will never prosper, nor any of your breed. Whatever scheme you undertake will wither in your hand. Whatever cause you support will always lose. The time will come when no Phillipson will own an inch of land and while Calgarth walls shall stand, we will haunt it night and day. You will never be rid of us!'

A few days later she and her beloved husband died on the gallows at Appleby. Their bodies were still swinging from gibbets at the crossroads when the Phillipsons took possession of their farmhouse, pulled it down and began building the sumptuous house they had longed for: it was named Calgarth Hall.

By the following Christmas, the new building was ready. Myles Phillipson and his wife held a great banquet on Christmas Day to celebrate. That night Dorothy's curse became more than a thing of mere words.

Guests crowded into the new Hall, admiring, envying the owners, impressed by such a show of wealth and social position. The dinner was boisterously merry. In the middle of it, Mrs Phillipson left the table to fetch a jewel that she wanted her guests to see.

The rooms and stairs of Calgarth Hall were lit by candles that threw deep shadows which danced and flickered when touched by draughts. But Mrs Phillipson was used to this kind of vague illumination And Dorothy Cook's curse was long since forgotten.

As Mrs Phillipson turned a corner in the dimly-lit stairs, she came on something that made her blood run cold; her eyes stared in terrified amazement. She stopped dead in her tracks, for a moment unable to utter a sound or move another step.

No more than inches in front of her, resting on the wide banisters - so near she could have reached out and touched them - were two grinning skulls. From one, hair streamed down in wispy strands. Both the deathsheads seemed about to open their grinning mouths and speak.

With a scream, Mrs Phillipson recovered her senses, turned and fled. Whimpering in terror, she ran in to the startled dinner party; trembling, white, and stammering, she gasped out what she had just seen.

Phillipson at once grabbed up a sword and a candle. Others male guests followed his example. Hosts and guests ran to the stairs. The skulls were still there. Even the men were shaken by the sight. For a moment, no one moved or said a word. Then a man bolder than the others went cautiously up to the skulls and thrust at them with his sword. They were real enough. The sword rang as it struck solid bone.

'Someone is playing a trick!' shouted Phillipson, livid with anger.

There and then he set about questioning the servants For some reason, one of the houseboys was suspected. He denied having anything to do with the presence of the skulls. Phillipson did not believe him and ordered the boy to be taken to the cellar and left there, tied to a pillar, until he confessed. The skulls were picked up on a sword blade and thrown into the courtyard.

There was no more merry-making that Christmas night at Calgarth Hall. The party broke up. Guests who lived nearby went home; the others retired to bed.

About two o'clock in the morning, the household was woken by a number of anguished screams. A crowd of tousled guests gathered round Myles Phillipson. The screams came from the staircase. Bunched together, fearful of what they would find, the startled group crept cautiously towards the sounds.

What they saw struck deeper terror into them than anything they had seen before...or wished to see again. Perched on a step, gleaming in an eerie light, were the two grinning skulls. No one slept again that night. When dawn came, Myles Phillipson himself took the dreadful objects and threw them into a pond.

This was but the beginning. Next night, from behind locked doors all over the house, came chilling screams. Next morning, the two skulls were found once more on the stairs. So it was night after night. No matter what was done to rid the Hall of the skulls - burying in quicklime, burning or even smashing with hammers - always the following night ghastly screams echoed throughout the building and the skulls were found on the stairs!

One by one the servants left the house. Phillipson's friends, remembering Dorothy's curse, refused invitations to stay at Calgarth. Nor would they have the Phillipsons in their own homes. For Dorothy's curse promised misfortune not on the Phillipsons alone, but on all with whom they associated.

Even so, Myles Phillipson and his wife refused to give up the house. They remained, with their children, suffering the nightly terrors. If the skulls had been ghostly apparitions, perhaps people would have minded less. But they were not. They were tangible bone; solid images of death; fearsome reminders of the evil deed on which Calgarth Hall was built. Every night as they climbed into bed the Phillipsons wondered when the time would come that the screams would wake them and they would open their eyes to find the grinning skulls there on the pillow beside them.

Meanwhile, just as Dorothy had predicted, Myles Phillipson's business began to decline. No one would deal with him; everything he touched failed. Slowly his wealth dwindled. When at last he died, he left his son with little fortune. And the skulls screamed ceaselessly all that night.

From the time of Phillipson's death, the skulls appeared only twice a year: on Christmas Day - the anniversary of the treacherous dinner - and on the day of the year on which Dorothy and Kraster were hanged. Even so, the heir fared little better than his father. No project he undertook prospered. Once he tried holding a party for his friends in his parents' old home. In the middle of dinner the dining-room doors were flung open. Across the floor rolled the two skulls; they jumped up onto the table, and lay there gaping at the assembled guests.

So it went on, one heir succeeding the last, each one inheriting the dreadful curse; each worse off than his father before him, until the family came to an end. The last member lived as an outcast and died a penniless beggar in 1705.

The dwindling state of the Phillipsons' fortunes meant that Calgarth Hall was neglected; its occupants used only parts of the building and allowed ever greater portions of it to fall into disrepair. As late as 1891, a Victorian chronicler stated that two skulls (which had been present as long as anybody could remember) sat on a window ledge in a large, semi-ruined unoccupied room. Today the Phillipson coat of arms is still visible on one old fireplace.

Dr Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff (who only visited his diocese on one occasion) acquired the property. According to some sources, he had the skulls bricked up within the walls and conducted an exorcism. The local people had doubts about the effectiveness of this service; for many years afterwards strange sights and sounds in and around the Hall were reported.