Hazelbadge Hall, a former home of the Vernon family at the head of Bradwell Dale, is associated with two distinct apparition traditions, both rooted in the Tudor period.
The first concerns Margaret Vernon, said to be the last of the Vernon line at Hazlebadge. According to local tradition recorded in several sources from the late 19th century onwards, she witnessed the marriage of her lover to another woman at Hope Church before riding home in a frenzied state, her mind seized with fever. Her ghost, mounted on a spectral white horse, is said to appear in the gorge between Bradwell and Hazlebadge on wild and stormy nights.
The second tradition concerns an annual appearance in Bradwell Dale of Queen Elizabeth I and her retinue, said to commemorate an occasion when the Queen, having lost her way to Haddon Hall, was given shelter at Hazelbadge. The story was recorded by Wilhelmena Stirling, who heard it from Marguerite Steen, whose friends the Darneleys had encountered it through a local woman named Catherine Pearson. Catherine claimed to have witnessed the phantom cavalcade herself and warned that it was ill fortune to catch the Queen’s eye, though good fortune to hear the bells on the harness. She avoided the dale on the anniversary of the Queen’s visit for the rest of her life.
Hazelbadge Hall is now a farm. The dale itself remains open countryside.
