The Stalls of Barchester is the first of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas strand, first broadcast on BBC 1 at 11.00pm on 24 December 1971. Based on the story "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" from the 1911 collection More Ghost Stories by M.R. James, it was adapted, produced and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

Whilst cataloguing the library of Barchester Cathedral in 1932, a scholar, Dr Black (Clive Swift) is shown a box containing a 50-year-old diary (sealed under the order of the Dean) detailing the events leading up to the mysterious death of Dr Haynes (Robert Hardy), a former Archdeacon of the cathedral. From the diary, Dr Black is able to piece together how the murder of Haynes' agéd predecessor, a 17th-century carving on the cathedral choir stalls and the appearance of a large black cat ultimately cursed the former archdeacon. It is implied that Dr Haynes caused the death of his aged predecessor, and therefore falls under the curse of 'Austin the Twice-Born', a carver who made the wooden decorations (the Devil, death and a black cat) of the Cathedral's Archdeacon's stall from oak brought from a nearby wood and from a tree known locally as 'The Hanging Oak'.

Narrator: Peter Coates

Listening Length: 00:35:59