This quaint fact is recorded in [a booklet on the history of Otley Parish Church]: that in 1869, during alterations, an earthenware bottle, called a "witch bottle," was dug up in the church. It had contained some liquid, human hair, and a number of iron nails. It was stated at the time of the discovery that there was formerly a superstition that if something of the kind were buried in the church or within its precincts, the spell of the witch would be removed. Which accounts for that and a number of similar bottles that have at various times been turned up in the churchyard.
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 29th June 1931.
