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Crewe

Twiggy_666 said:
hmmm this area is quite strange :/ lol, erm anyone have anything to share? anything at all?
Close textual analysis suggests absence of Author. Oh! Mr Porter!

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I'll be honest, laddie, I hate your Avatar. It's so... brusque. ;)
 
Station Hotel? D'you mean the Railway Hotel?

I used to work on the platforms many years ago and heard lots of ghost stories, which I instantly dismissed as attempts to rattle me. Most of my relations have worked on t'railway and will have heard them too so I could always ask around.

There is a haunted lane just up the road from the cemetery. I have met people who have seen a wispy human figure drift across it. One reckons his drunken brother offered it a chip! :D
 
I believe Crewe was merely a series of small villages until the railway arrived.

Hmm ghosts, have to say the best ones I have ever come across are all in relatively modern builings or sites. RAF Cranage near Holmes Chapel was absolutely rampant with spooks, but then again it sits on a major fault line, which by the way is being pumped full of gas as we speak on the orders of John Prescott, so when it explodes it'll take most of Cheshire and north staffordshire with it. Joy.

just come to me about the ghost in the village my mum grew up in. Eaton nr Congleton has an 16th century coaching inn, the Plough. A woman was murdered in the 18th/19th century and still haunts the pub. She unlocks or locks doors as she walks through them and follows the same path every time which takes her down from the attics, through the inn and down the road to the old Quaker burial ground. Why noone knows. However one man, drunk at the time, tried to block her path on the road. She stopped, looked through him, then he learnt how to fly without trying and she carried on.
These days shes just left to get on with it, but she hasn't been seen for over 20 years, we think she is starting to fade away. However she still changes the locks on doors as she walks through them.
 
I live in Crewe, not far from St Micheals, cant say I have ever noticed anything spooky anywhere, except for Middlewhich Street. There is a field that backs onto it and I always walk down it on my way to work but for about a week I would walk to the entrance then walk away and walk down the street and not through the park. Cant say why I did this but NOTHING would have made me walk through the park for that week.
 
Hooo, Nantwich is on Most Haunted RIGHT NOW! :D
 
We only chanced on it by accident so didn't get a chance to record it.
I know Nantwich well though and recognised all the locations.

Here is a suggested walk, which takes in several of the featured locations. We could have a FTMB Haunted Nantwich Stroll, taking in a few of the more reliably haunted locations! :D

The Red Cow is supposedly haunted by a ghost which picks on customers using the Ladies'. As we will need a female investigator to probe this perilous pissoir, I volunteer my own services, suitably primed, of course. ;)

The gully they went on about is mentioned here,

The walk can be shortened at this point by taking the footpath on the right of the Methodist Chapel, through the car park, in front of the Bowling Green pub and turning left along Monks Lane to rejoin the walk at the Market Hall on the north side of the church

The Bowling Green might divert us for a while as it serves both beer and Death By Chocolate. There are photos on the wall in there of Nantwich town centre in the 1920s, one of which shows my great-grandfather working as a paver outside the church.

I'm up for a nice wander around, any day I'm not working. Weekdays are probably best.

I can give lifts from Crewe, in which case there'll be no beerage for me. Bah.

Incidentally, some of the more distinguished buildings in Nantwich are not in their original places. Being timber-framed, they were designed to be moved if necessary to new foundations, and I believe that Churche's Mansion was indeed relocated in this way.
 
Ooh, count me in.

If anyone from the Chester or Deeside area wants to attend, I'll be driving, so let me know if you need a lift.
 
Speaking as someone who is not local or having ever visited the area - these are really interesting stories and you're doing some great local folklore collecting as a group. Can't help thinking the local reaction to pesky ghosts is somewhat... cheeky! You don't half seem to give them a good scolding or accost them in a drunken state. :D

I would imagine that some navvies must have died in accidents whilst digging and creating the railways and there must have been some kind of religious estates in the pre-industrial days. Plenty to go on perhaps. :)
 
escargot1 said:
We only chanced on it by accident so didn't get a chance to record it.
I know Nantwich well though and recognised all the locations.

Here is a suggested walk, which takes in several of the featured locations. We could have a FTMB Haunted Nantwich Stroll, taking in a few of the more reliably haunted locations! :D

The Red Cow is supposedly haunted by a ghost which picks on customers using the Ladies'. As we will need a female investigator to probe this perilous pissoir, I volunteer my own services, suitably primed, of course. ;)

The gully they went on about is mentioned here,

The walk can be shortened at this point by taking the footpath on the right of the Methodist Chapel, through the car park, in front of the Bowling Green pub and turning left along Monks Lane to rejoin the walk at the Market Hall on the north side of the church

The Bowling Green might divert us for a while as it serves both beer and Death By Chocolate. There are photos on the wall in there of Nantwich town centre in the 1920s, one of which shows my great-grandfather working as a paver outside the church.

I'm up for a nice wander around, any day I'm not working. Weekdays are probably best.

I can give lifts from Crewe, in which case there'll be no beerage for me. Bah.

Incidentally, some of the more distinguished buildings in Nantwich are not in their original places. Being timber-framed, they were designed to be moved if necessary to new foundations, and I believe that Churche's Mansion was indeed relocated in this way.

Ohhh this sounds like it could be fun! What sort of date are you thinking off? Weekends would be best for me. Fancy meeting somebody else from Crewe!!!
 
Yup, what're the chances, eh! :D

After the weekend I will have a better idea of what days I'm working so let's have a think about when to go. Any day I'm free will suit me.
 
staticgirl said:
Speaking as someone who is not local or having ever visited the area - these are really interesting stories and you're doing some great local folklore collecting as a group. Can't help thinking the local reaction to pesky ghosts is somewhat... cheeky! You don't half seem to give them a good scolding or accost them in a drunken state. :D
er yes? In the north we have found the best way to deal with a ghost is to tell it to go away as impolitely as possible. Usually works.
BTW, are you the same staticgirl as the one on the SFX forum?
 
I moved to Crewe in 2003, after a lifetime spent working on the railway in the London area. Not long after moving, I was stood in the checkout queue at what was then Safeways, and is now Tesco, built on the site of the original Crewe Works yard, when a stack of cans inexplicably fell over. "What on earth was that?" said the lady in front of me to the girl on the checkout. "Oh, just the ghost" she replied, "The shelf stackers often see him at night, wearing dungarees and one of those old shiny-top caps, and he often moves stuff about, but he's harmless really."
I pricked up my ears at this, since that exactly describes what we used to wear on the footplate in the steam days.
I have done some research since, and, if the occurences in Safeways did constitute a genuine haunting, it seems likely that the ghost may be that of a Driver killed on duty during a German air-raid on the night of 7th. April 1941.
Since 2003, and Tesco's takeover of the former Safeways supermarket, I have heard no more on the subject.
 
We need a MH-type invasion of the Railway Age centre! :D

Hey, we could suggest that. I bet it'd go down well.
 
Fireman62 said:
I moved to Crewe in 2003, after a lifetime spent working on the railway in the London area. Not long after moving, I was stood in the checkout queue at what was then Safeways, and is now Tesco, built on the site of the original Crewe Works yard, when a stack of cans inexplicably fell over. "What on earth was that?" said the lady in front of me to the girl on the checkout. "Oh, just the ghost" she replied, "The shelf stackers often see him at night, wearing dungarees and one of those old shiny-top caps, and he often moves stuff about, but he's harmless really."
I pricked up my ears at this, since that exactly describes what we used to wear on the footplate in the steam days.
I have done some research since, and, if the occurences in Safeways did constitute a genuine haunting, it seems likely that the ghost may be that of a Driver killed on duty during a German air-raid on the night of 7th. April 1941.
Since 2003, and Tesco's takeover of the former Safeways supermarket, I have heard no more on the subject.

:shock: Youre not Chris are you???????
 
Hooooo, the Nantwich MH Midsummer Murders is on again! Right now! :D
 
drbates said:
1) A couple of women who go hysterical at the slightest provocation and set the rest of the group off


quote]

Me, me, me, I can fill this role no problem :D
 
If you're filling rolls, I'll have one egg and cress and a cheese salad, please.
 
Hey, I'm free next Sunday. I can be the bint at the end who wraps it up hoarsely after screaming all night.
 
why god! why do I have to work weekends!
 
With reference to the ghostly Driver who haunted Safeways (and who presumably has not shown himself since the Tesco takeover, due to Tescos being open 24/7), I have discovered that TWODrivers were killed in the incident on 7th. April 1941. One was a Crewe man, who's name I've been unable to trace, and the other was Driver Fred Mayor, from Springs Branch, Wigan.
For the record, the engine involved was LMS "Black 5" No.5425, and the blast that killed the two Drivers was powerful enough to completely shatter the engine's left-hand leading coupled wheel, a massive steel casting with a diameter of 6 feet.
 
Yup, well, it used to be very good indeed, I would expect it to be even better now.

There is a thriving local history society too which I keep being badgered to join.

Keele University library has an excellent Special Collection (ooer, sounds a bit adult) which features lots of books, pamphlets, maps etc centred on Crewe. Anyone can visit there, not just university types.

One of my aged uncles is a family history buff so I took him there for an afternoon, and he nearly swooned away, right there on the spot. :lol:
 
I lived on London Road, Nantwich for 10 years and remember visiting the aforesaid Crewe supermarket one evening. I think it was still Safeway then, but I can attest that it was the most dour experience - reading this post it still stood out in my mind - a real air of gloom and depression. Having said that I remember taking my son (who must have been about 3 at the time) to the railway museum and experiencing nothing unearthly at all...

It seems like trhe Crewe and Nantwich is one of the most haunted boroughs in the UK...we have nothing like that in New Jersey...
 
I'm busy in the morning but will be free by about 1. Can bring camera, EVP recorder, flask of coffee etc. :D

I only live 5 minutes up the road from there!
 
Ideasman, do you remember ever being told about the headless horseman that was supposed to gallop down the lane outside the office we used to work in at Tattenhall? I'm sure there was a haunting story about the site / area but can't remember any details.

The Sales Director at the company we worked for was a vampire. We have no proof of this, but by gum, he looked like one. :vampire:


Wish I could make it on Sunday. :(
 
If you're going to my gym, the undead're already with you. :(
 
1.30pm sounds really good to me, we will have to get a meeting point so we know who each other are!
 
Lys617 said:
staticgirl said:
Speaking as someone who is not local or having ever visited the area - these are really interesting stories and you're doing some great local folklore collecting as a group. Can't help thinking the local reaction to pesky ghosts is somewhat... cheeky! You don't half seem to give them a good scolding or accost them in a drunken state. :D
er yes? In the north we have found the best way to deal with a ghost is to tell it to go away as impolitely as possible. Usually works.
BTW, are you the same staticgirl as the one on the SFX forum?

yup!
 
drbates said:
I dont know the layout of the site at all - but how about by wherever you buy your entrance ticket? Carry a copy of FT for extra ident.

You'll recognise me anyway - 6' 3", fairly hefty and usually scowly ;)

LOL, it is free parking in Crewe, you dont need an enterance ticket, where abouts shall we meet, the car park or the railway age? Or in the car park by the railway age?
 
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