Derbyshire & Peak District Ghosts

[Spookdaddy]

Story #2:

Heading south towards Warslow from the village of Longnor in the Staffordshire Peak District, you travel along what is initially a very straight section of road (now part of the B5053). Soon after leaving the village you reach a small bridge which crosses the river Manifold. My dad was a little older here – and what made it stick in his memory even more than it might was that it took place on his first ever ride in a motor car (he’d been in motorised vehicles before, but never a domestic one). The vehicle was open topped, and it was a fine sunny day. As they approached the bridge, but still at some distance, my father saw very distinctly a lady in light coloured clothes (yes, another one) standing in the road in the middle of the bridge. As the vehicle approached she moved to the side and stood up against the low wall, smiling at the occupants of the vehicle as the car passed by. My dad looked at her as they are passed, blinked…and she was gone. When he asked the other people in the car if they had seen the lady, they had no idea what he was talking about - no-one else had seen her, despite the fact that a car passing a person on this bridge would probably be less than six feet away from them.

Notes: I have a vague recollection of hearing at least one other ghost story associated with this bridge, but cannot recall any details or find anything online. There is one story which might be relevant - if, that is, it hadn’t been attributed to the wrong Longnor: white ladies and water appear in both – but the source I’ve found concerns the Shropshire rather than Staffordshire Longnor and others appear to have conflated the two. I got quite excited when I read Rob Gandy’s article in the latest FT (389) - it includes an experience with similar elements in an unknown location, which it is within the realms of possibility could have been here – but other aspects of the tale do not really fit.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I’ve already related my dad’s final story, some time back, on the Weird Things That Have Multiple Witnesses? thread. I’ve just done a straight cut and paste of that here:

My dad had an experience which involved several other witnesses...and a bus.

He is considerably older than my mum and served in WW2. Sometime in the early years of the war he was riding a bus to his home high up in the White Peak. It was late at night and pitch dark. There were less than half a dozen other passengers, and, of course, the driver.

At one point on their route the bus had to negotiate a steep hill with a hairpin bend which leads down into to a longish and very straight section of road. This area is notorious for accidents - which is probably due to the nature of the road - but also has a headless horseman tale associated with it.

Anyway, just as the bus levels out onto the straight section my dad and the rest of the passengers see a large, white, apparently solid object appear in front of the bus and brace themselves for a collision. There's a shout from the bus-driver and an almighty 'thump' as the object is struck by the bus.

The driver stops and everyone looks at my dad (a not always fortunate by-product of wearing a uniform is that people appear to think that you will know what to do in any given situation) who gets out of the bus followed by the other passengers and checks out the road and the verge. There's nothing there so they spread out and check the near edges of the fields. Still nothing.

At this point I should point out that my dad and the others riding the bus had no clear idea of what it is they had seen, but, on being questioned, the very shaken bus-driver said he thought it was a woman.

The following day police and locals searched the area and my dad thinks that a local army unit also helped, but nothing was ever found.

At the time the Peak was fairly hardscrabble farm country and those on the bus would have been, like him, pragmatic and sober highlanders, not at all prone to histrionics. It's probably also worth pointing out that my dad was a trained observer.

A couple of points: I'd initially thought that the 'thump' of the object hitting the bus might have been a misremembering of the jolt caused by the bus-driver hastily applying the brakes, however my dad is adamant that the two events were separate. Everyone on the bus - albeit there were very few - saw the object. Given the size of the thing seen by the passengers, if it was, as the driver stated, a woman, then she was several feet in the air before the bus hit her.

I should also point out that my dad is a sober and honest individual. He's got three ghost stories - which given that he's now in his ninetieth year doesn't seem unreasonable, or make him sound like he might be someone prone to excesses of imagination in that direction.

Notes: The stretch of road in question crosses Butterton Moor, and was known to my dad as Butterton Clews, but that name is not on the map (although there is a Clews Farm by the road) - it actually forms part of the B5053 mentioned in the previous story. I note now that a tale I told earlier in the thread – that of my uncle, his girlfriend, and the aggressive phantom horseman – took place on the very same stretch of road.

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

Story #2:

Heading south towards Warslow from the village of Longnor in the Staffordshire Peak District, you travel along what is initially a very straight section of road (now part of the B5053). Soon after leaving the village you reach a small bridge which crosses the river Manifold. My dad was a little older here – and what made it stick in his memory even more than it might was that it took place on his first ever ride in a motor car (he’d been in motorised vehicles before, but never a domestic one). The vehicle was open topped, and it was a fine sunny day. As they approached the bridge, but still at some distance, my father saw very distinctly a lady in light coloured clothes (yes, another one) standing in the road in the middle of the bridge. As the vehicle approached she moved to the side and stood up against the low wall, smiling at the occupants of the vehicle as the car passed by. My dad looked at her as they are passed, blinked…and she was gone. When he asked the other people in the car if they had seen the lady, they had no idea what he was talking about - no-one else had seen her, despite the fact that a car passing a person on this bridge would probably be less than six feet away from them.

Notes: I have a vague recollection of hearing at least one other ghost story associated with this bridge, but cannot recall any details or find anything online. There is one story which might be relevant - if, that is, it hadn’t been attributed to the wrong Longnor: white ladies and water appear in both – but the source I’ve found concerns the Shropshire rather than Staffordshire Longnor and many sources seem to have conflated the two. I got quite excited when I read Rob Gandy’s article in the latest FT (389) - it includes an experience with similar elements in an unknown location, which it is within the realms of possibility could have been here – but other aspects of the tale do not really fit.

Ooh these are both wonderful accounts of your father's experiences, thank you so much for posting them.

Forgive me for possibly asking the obvious (I'm a bit lacking in cognitive skills today) but... my impression is that it is the same lady appearing in both events... is that what you take from it too?

 

[Spookdaddy]

...Forgive me for possibly asking the obvious (I'm a bit lacking in cognitive skills today) but... my impression is that it is the same lady appearing in both events... is that what you take from it too?

I've thought about this, but I'm not sure how significant it is.

If, in the first instance, you suspend any disbelief and assume the reality of what we call ghosts, and you also assume that both sexes are probably equally likely to be a bit restless after death, then the sex of any alleged sighting is based on a 50% probability. Spread over two or three events the fact that all three experiences cluster on one side of the scales could be called a bit of a coincidence - however, in terms of mathematical probability, I don't think it's really so unlikely as to be particularly unusual.

My dad never drew any conclusions on the matter, and I never heard him state that they might be the same thing. To my mind he viewed the experiences as entirely separate events. My memory of his telling me these tales suggests that in the first, he thinks the figure was that of a woman, but that there was something a little odd and vague in the figure's appearence; in the second - she's definitely a woman, dressed in the style of the day, just as you would expect a flesh and blood lady of the period to appear; the third - the witnesses describe the thing they see as a woman, but maybe only because it's the closest comparison they can think of.

 

[bugmum]

Our school used to drag us up to the Peak District on Geography trips (better to look at river valleys there than on the Fen!) and I always got the impression of it being an old atmospheric landscape.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Our school used to drag us up to the Peak District on Geography trips (better to look at river valleys there than on the Fen!) and I always got the impression of it being an old atmospheric landscape.

One of the running motifs of my life has been the number of people who - when I tell them where I'm from - say they've visited the area on a geography field trip.

I think what makes it attractive to teachers of geography - apart from being relatively accessible - are the number of different landscapes contained within the same area; there's the obvious split between the White and Dark Peaks, but within these - especially, I think, the former - there's a wide range of variations. I think the number of liminalities and odd little borderlands this variation creates adds something quite unique to the atmosphere of the place.

Another factor that I think contributes is the height. The whole area is upland, containing some of the highest occupied settlements in the UK. Yet, on a fine day in certain areas of the White Peak you might just about imagine yourself in the Cotswolds, or possibly even the Sussex Downs. The landscape can lull you into a false sense of itself, and then, when the weather comes down, or you run out of petrol, bushwhack you with the reality.

 

[SimonBurchell]

Well, this thread has jogged my memory. In the mid-1980s, I was on a college field trip and we stayed at Matlock Station, which was a hostel at the time. Late one evening when everyone was in their dorms (divided boy/girl of course), one of the lads got up to go to the loo. He opened the dorm door, which was at the end of a corridor, with the light switch half-way along the corridor. He looked out and froze and said something like "guys, there's someone in the corridor". I was in the bunk right next to the door, but couldn't be arsed to get up and look (shamefully), but some of the others did, and they could all see the silhouette of a man standing in the corridor; they were all too terrified to head down there and switch on the light. After a while, someone dug out a torch and shone it down the corridor, and there was no-one there. It certainly freaked out the gathered witnesses.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Well, this thread has jogged my memory. In the mid-1980s, I was on a college field trip and we stayed at Matlock Station...

Could that have been Matlock Bath station, rather than Matlock (sounds pernickety, but they are actually a fair distance from each other)?

As far as I know, (although I could have got this wrong) the latter's always been operational, and its associated buildings used for railway purposes - whereas the former's buildings, which were built in a quite unusual chalet style, were taken over by a wildlife charity back in the 1980s.

 

[SimonBurchell]

Could that have been Matlock Bath station, rather than Matlock (sounds pernickety, but they are actually a fair distance from each other)?

As far as I know, (although I could have got this wrong) the latter's always been operational, and its associated buildings used for railway purposes - whereas the former's buildings, which were built in a quite unusual chalet style, were taken over by a wildlife charity back in the 1980s.

What I remember is that it was right next to a lengthy railway tunnel that we explored (carefully), the line was still used by trains. Looking at maps, it does indeed seem to be Matlock Bath.

 

[SimonBurchell]

...when my dad asked his father he was told something along the lines of, ‘there are things up there that you don’t need to know the name of’

...shudder... wonderful!

 

[Spookdaddy]

...shudder... wonderful!

I can't swear to those being the exact words used, but they aren't very far off. Kind of corny - but my dad gave a little shiver when he made the comment, and he was remembering something that had happened to him around seven or eight decades previously.

I think I know the site, and have been meaning to get up there for ages. I cannot picture it in my mind's eye now without filtering it through the lens of a ghost story, so maybe that's why I'm putting it off.

 

[Mooka]

Spookdaddy, your dad has had some really chilling experiences!

SimonBurchell, up until 1983 there was a youth hostel over the other side of the road from the railway station at Matlock Bath. It started life as a vicarage. Here‘s a picture

 

[SimonBurchell]

Spookdaddy, your dad has had some really chilling experiences!

SimonBurchell, up until 1983 there was a youth hostel over the other side of the road from the railway station at Matlock Bath. It started life as a vicarage. Here‘s a picture

Thanks Mooka - this would have been in 1986, and I remember it was directly next to the platform - out of the hostel, loop around the side of the building, onto the platform, hop down onto the tracks... well, you get the idea! BTW, I don't recommend walking along railway tracks. This was all a long time ago, but I believe it was a single track railway through a tunnel built to take double track; and there were regular arched niches in the tunnel wall to provide a safe place for engineers to wait for trains to pass. An interesting design feature that we hadn't allowed for was an open shaft in the tunnel roof that allowed a stream to pour out as a waterfall directly down into the tunnel, resulting in us intrepid explorers getting unexpectedly drenched.

Regarding the station hostel - it was single storey with a loft. All very vague now, but I recall the doorway entering into a general living area with kitchenette, from there a passageway (the one with the ghost recounted above) ran on the right hand side from the entrance door. The right hand wall of the corridor was the external wall. The left hand side had two doors - one for the toilet, one for the girls' dormitory. There was an additional door at the end of the passageway, which opened into the boys dormitory. The light switch was half-way down this corridor.

 

[Mooka]

Ah right, I just posted on the off-chance, I thought the year of closing would rule it out. I’m wondering if you stayed in one of the Swiss chalet type buildings then as mentioned by Spookdaddy.

 

[SimonBurchell]

Ah right, I just posted on the off-chance, I thought the year of closing would rule it out. I’m wondering if you stayed in one of the Swiss chalet type buildings then as mentioned by Spookdaddy.

Quite possibly, it looks about right but it is far too long ago now for me to be sure.

 

[Mooka]

If anybody is interested Richard Felix’s ‘Derbyshire Ghosts’ (1 and 2) is on YouTube. I watched them after their release on DVD and if you can cope with the dodgy sound they are worth a watch.

 

[Tempest63]

I used to visit Matlock and Bakewell etc when married to the first wife as she had family in the Alfreton area. Do I recall that the Heights of Abraham had some spooky caves that were reputedly haunted?

 

[Mooka]

I’ve not heard about the caves being haunted, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all, I’ll have to see if I can find out more about that.

The one place always mentioned when talking about haunted places in Matlock Bath is the Grand Pavilion building, where the Peak District Lead Mining Museum is. There’s been many paranormal investigations there, I think Most Haunted even did a show from there once.

 

[Dick Turpin]

I must say I do like the peak district. My eldest brother moved up there back in the mid 90’s, his wife being a local.

Whenever I venture north to visit, I always stay in the same hotel. A modern purpose-built hotel, one of those that has a smiling half-moon face as it’s emblem. Next door to it however is an old farmhouse which has been converted into a pub / restaurant. My brother is a total sceptic but has been told by numerous people that something isn’t quite right about that place.

One boxing day evening, after diner and drinks at his house, he dropped me and my family off at the hotel well after midnight. Mrs DT was a smoker back then so hung around outside the pub for her last smoke of the night.

The pub was closed, and the lights were turned off, but she told me she could see the silhouette of a figure walking around inside the pub. She assumed it was the manager, who lived in the rooms above doing his last-minute checks before going to bed. Via a waitress at breakfast the next morning, we found out that nobody lives in the rooms above and at that time of night the place should have been empty.

Although she could have been mistaken of course. She was a bit ahem tipsy lol

 

[RuthRoperWylde]

Thanks Mooka - this would have been in 1986, and I remember it was directly next to the platform - out of the hostel, loop around the side of the building, onto the platform, hop down onto the tracks... well, you get the idea! BTW, I don't recommend walking along railway tracks. This was all a long time ago, but I believe it was a single track railway through a tunnel built to take double track; and there were regular arched niches in the tunnel wall to provide a safe place for engineers to wait for trains to pass. An interesting design feature that we hadn't allowed for was an open shaft in the tunnel roof that allowed a stream to pour out as a waterfall directly down into the tunnel, resulting in us intrepid explorers getting unexpectedly drenched.

Regarding the station hostel - it was single storey with a loft. All very vague now, but I recall the doorway entering into a general living area with kitchenette, from there a passageway (the one with the ghost recounted above) ran on the right hand side from the entrance door. The right hand wall of the corridor was the external wall. The left hand side had two doors - one for the toilet, one for the girls' dormitory. There was an additional door at the end of the passageway, which opened into the boys dormitory. The light switch was half-way down this corridor.

Are you happy for me to add this in to my databases, Simon?

 

[ChrisBoardman]

Strange but True? did an episode about the sky lighting up at night and strange lights inside someones car.

 

[SimonBurchell]

Are you happy for me to add this in to my databases, Simon?

Of course! It must have been Matlock Bath station rather than Matlock, as discussed above.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Spookdaddy, your dad has had some really chilling experiences!...

Yes - not bad, are they. Mind you, he was 93 when he died, had seen a fair bit in his life, and found time to fight a world war (not on his own, obviously). Works out at one ghost story per three decades - which doesn't seem a lot when you look at it like that.

I used to visit Matlock and Bakewell etc when married to the first wife as she had family in the Alfreton area. Do I recall that the Heights of Abraham had some spooky caves that were reputedly haunted?

I don’t know Matlock at all well – but very probably; most of the caverns have some stories attached – unsurprisingly, I suppose. (And as @Mooka mentioned – the Grand Pavilion in Matlock Bath is famously haunted, and looks exactly as if it should be.) Thor's Cave and Reynard’s Cave in the Manifold and Dove Valleys are very atmospheric, if you can dodge the tourists (the southern end of the Dales can get very busy, but the gaggles of visitors drop off surprisingly quickly the further north you get). Thor’s Cave is supposed to be haunted by a Roman soldier, amongst others. But I'm more intrigued by a story I vaguely recall, but have never been able to find again - which appeared a long time ago as an IHTM either in FT or in the very early days of the website - about someone seeing lights playing up and down the rock faces of the dale sides.

Incidentally, Bakewell used to have my favourite tool shop in the world – Tabwell Tools. Looked like a grocers from the front, but inside was absolutely packed with all kinds of stuff you never found anywhere else; it was like an Aladdin's cave that carpenters dream about when they're little. In fact, there were three of them – one for hand tools and carpentry, one for power tools, one which I think did garden stuff - unbelievable for such a small place. Sadly, no more – probably chains selling outdoor gear now.

 

[Spookdaddy]

In relation to my dad's earliest experience (post#30):

...Notes: I have not been able to find a place known as Boggarts Barn – not even on older maps and field plans. This, in itself, is not so odd; the OS has always been pretty good on local and folk place-names - but never exhaustive; my relations used a fair few place names that were never on any plan. What is a bit odd is the usage of the word ‘boggart’ – which is not common in the area. The name ‘Hob’ is very common, and maybe not so different in implication – but I cannot find a Hob’s Barn either, and besides, knowing my dad, and his knowledge of the area, I doubt he was mistaken in the first place.

I do have a strong inkling of the place in question – and I’ll maybe try and get up there this spring and take some photographs. Possibly early in the day…when it’s nice and sunny, and there’s no danger of me getting caught out by a darkening afternoon.

I had a bit of a hunt for images of the place I think may be the locus of this story. Wasn't really surprised when I couldn't find anything, although I did get all nostalgic, and start beating myself up for not getting out in the hills often enough this year.

For what it's worth, I did find one video which shows the place at a bit of a distance. At 2:53 on the footage below you'll see a row of trees with a structure behind it. That's the building which I think my dad referred to as Boggart's Barn:

 

[Mooka]

Yes - not bad, are they. Mind you, he was 93 when he died, had seen a fair bit in his life, and found time to fight a world war (not on his own, obviously). Works out at one ghost story per three decades - which doesn't seem a lot when you look at it like that.



I don’t know Matlock at all well – but very probably; most of the caverns have some stories attached – unsurprisingly, I suppose. (And as @Mooka mentioned – the Grand Pavilion in Matlock Bath is famously haunted, and looks exactly as if it should be.) Thor's Cave and Reynard’s Cave in the Manifold and Dove Valleys are very atmospheric, if you can dodge the tourists (the southern end of the Dales can get very busy, but the gaggles of visitors drop off surprisingly quickly the further north you get). Thor’s Cave is supposed to be haunted by a Roman soldier, amongst others. But I'm more intrigued by a story I vaguely recall, but have never been able to find again - which appeared a long time ago as an IHTM either in FT or in the very early days of the website - about someone seeing lights playing up and down the rock faces of the dale sides.

Incidentally, Bakewell used to have my favourite tool shop in the world – Tabwell Tools. Looked like a grocers from the front, but inside was absolutely packed with all kinds of stuff you never found anywhere else; it was like an Aladdin's cave that carpenters dream about when they're little. In fact, there were three of them – one for hand tools and carpentry, one for power tools, one which I think did garden stuff - unbelievable for such a small place. Sadly, no more – probably chains selling outdoor gear now.

They are pretty darned good incidents too, and the infrequency spread out over his long life just makes them more believable.

I remember that tool shop, well if it’s the one which was on the corner near the tourist information and next door to the gift shop, Sears. Noticed recently Sears too is no more, which is very sad as I always liked to pop in there and have a look round.

 

[Mooka]

In relation to my dad's earliest experience (post#30):



I had a bit of a hunt for images of the place I think may be the locus of this story. Wasn't really surprised when I couldn't find anything, although I did get all nostalgic, and start beating myself up for not getting out in the hills often enough this year.

For what it's worth, I did find one video which shows the place at a bit of a distance. At 2:53 on the footage below you'll see a row of trees with a structure behind it. That's the building which I think my dad referred to as Boggart's Barn:

I’ve just had a quick search on the old newspapers site for Boggart‘s Barn on the off-chance it may have been mentioned, but nothing came up.

 

[Sid]

I’ve just had a quick search on the old newspapers site for Boggart‘s Barn on the off-chance it may have been mentioned, but nothing came up.

Found this if it's at all relevant . . . [Boggart-haunted Barn in Coal Clough Lane in the 1930's:]
https://www.lep.co.uk/news/people/b...lancashire-folklores-most-famous-myths-663328

 

[SimonBurchell]

In relation to my dad's earliest experience (post#30):



I had a bit of a hunt for images of the place I think may be the locus of this story. Wasn't really surprised when I couldn't find anything, although I did get all nostalgic, and start beating myself up for not getting out in the hills often enough this year.

For what it's worth, I did find one video which shows the place at a bit of a distance. At 2:53 on the footage below you'll see a row of trees with a structure behind it. That's the building which I think my dad referred to as Boggart's Barn:

So this is Boggart's Barn:

 

[maximus otter]

Found this if it's at all relevant . . . [Boggart-haunted Barn in Coal Clough Lane in the 1930's:]
https://www.lep.co.uk/news/people/b...lancashire-folklores-most-famous-myths-663328

Coal Clough Lane is in Burnley, Lancs., unfortunately.

maximus otter

 

[Spookdaddy]

So this is Boggart's Barn...

It would be more accurate to say that it's the place that I think my dad was referring to, rather than the place he definitely told me he was referring to. It fits all the other aspects of the story, and is on the cross field route from the area just south of Biggin to the village of Hartington, both places where family lived and worked at the time.

I’ve just had a quick search on the old newspapers site for Boggart‘s Barn on the off-chance it may have been mentioned, but nothing came up.

Yes. In this instance, searching the boggart name seems to be a non-starter. I've been looking, on and off, for years. I suspect it was a local folk name that never made it onto a map, and is now lost to time. Another possibility is that it wasn't a name, as such, but a reference. As for instance, you might refer to a house as 'Mr Smith's house' without intending to imply that the house's name is 'Mr Smith's House' - if that makes sense. If this is the case, there's a chance it may have only used by the family.

As I said, what's quite unusual is that 'boggart' isn't a very common usage in this particular area. 'Hob' is far more common - Hob being a woodland spirit who's antics have more in common with fairy lore, I think.