Francis Lovell, 1st Viscount Lovell, was a supporter of Richard III during the War of the Roses. After the defeat of the Yorkists at the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487, Francis Lovell is said to have gone into hiding in a secret room at Minster Lovell Hall.

The only person who knew of his presence was a faithful servant who locked him into the secret room and brought him his food. According to legend, the servant died unexpectedly, leaving Lowell to die an unpleasant death by starvation.

According to a legend recounted in Christine Bloxham's Folklore of Oxfordshire, Lord Lovell's hiding place was eventually discovered. William Cowper, Clerk to Parliament, wrote in 1737 that when the building was renovated in 1718 a hidden vault was discovered behind an old chimney. Inside they found the skeleton of a man seated at a table, with books, pen and paper in front of him and with the skeleton dog of a dog at his feet.

In the other version of the legend, the skeletal scene was not witnessed by workmen, but by Lord Lovell's own valet, the curiously named 'Rustling Jack'. After Lord Lovell's disappearance, Jack began searching the hall for the treasure that he knew his master had hidden somewhere about the hall., and it was during this search that he discovered the hidden vault and the grim tableau within.

In both versions of the legend, the result was the same, with the skeletons immediately crumbling to dust upon being exposed to fresh air!

Ghostly groans, wailings, footsteps and even the rustling of papers are said to be heard around the ruins of the hall. Some claim to have seen the ghost of Lord Lovell himself. He is described either as a knight in shining armour riding a charger, or as an altogether more pensive figure, pacing around the ruins of the hall in a cloak.

Minster Lovell Hall is also one of the places in the UK said to have been the location of the folk story known as 'The Mistletoe Bough', or sometimes 'The Mistletoe Bride'. The story concerns a wedding day on which the happy young bride decides to celebrate by playing a game of hide-and-seek about the hall.

The bride chooses to hide in a chest in a remote attic and the lid falls closed, locking her in. Her friends and family are unable to find the girl and eventually give up the search. Many years later, the attic is being cleared out and a skeleton wearing a wedding dress is found locked in the chest.

According to Berry Puttick in Oxfordshire Tales of the Supernatural, the figure of a woman in a white dress haunts the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall, the unhappy ghost of the bride who died on what has supposed to be her most happy day. Puttick notes that the chest in which the bride was supposed to have died is now in Greys Court, near Henley-on-Thames, another house that was owned by the Lovell family.

In his book Oxfordshire Ghosts (2000), Joe Robinson recounts how a group of American tourists claimed to have experienced what can only be described as a time-slip, in which they found themselves experiencing Minster Lovell Hall not as a picturesque ruin, but as it would have appeared in its prime.

On arriving at the hall, the four tourists expected to see a ruin but were surprised to find a 'grand old mansion', complete with roofs, doors, numerous glassed windows and a cobbled courtyard, apparently still in regular use.

As the group watched, a elderly man appeared leading horse, upon which sat a man in a breastplate and chainmail, carrying a visored helmet. Both the horse and its rider appeared completely exhausted, as if arriving after a very long and hard ride. As the group watched, the elderly man led the horse across the courtyard and, to their surprise, disappeared through a wall!

How this encounter ended is not recorded, but the four tourists were apparently convinced of what they saw. It's probably worth noting that the events took place one evening in April 1983 at around 7pm, and while it may not have been completely dark at that time of day, visibility would certainly have been a lot less than it was an hour earlier!

The implication of the story is that the four tourists witnessed a supernatural repeat of the return of Francis Lovell, arriving home exhausted after his defeat at the Battle of Stoke Field.

According to Joe Robinson, this is not the only time a mounted spectre has been seen in the vicinity of Minster Lovell ruins. This ghost, more commonly referred to as the 'White Knight', and is usually described as wearing shining armour and riding atop a huge white warhorse, a far cry from the broken down figure described by the American tourists.