• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
Just an aside to the above. Way prior to my experience some people broke into the crypt of the church and opened a number of coffins in the hope of finding jewellery and other valuables in the coffins.
Those involved ended up taking out one of the very old corpses and propped it up on the bridge that, presumably, went over the old canal.
It was headline news in the South London Press back in the day but their archive is now behind a paywall so I can’t find the story.
If anyone has an Ancestry U.K. account they can sign into the archive with their account details and may be able to find further info.
 
Did you find that photo to post or have I missed it?

I've found a couple - Glen and myself (so many years ago it hurts to think about it (ouch! About 40 :()):

20220617_184426.jpg


Our two dogs at the time; Andy and Glen* in uncharacteristic laid-back mode:

20220617_184634.jpg


* Also known as: the "Gruesome Twosome", the "Terrible Twins" or "Those Bloody Greedy Spaniels!".
 
Last edited:
* Also known as: the "Gruesome Twosome", the "Terrible Twins" or "Those Bloody Greedy Spaniels!".
Our Spaniels, for some reason we have never fathomed, are collectively know as “the spangles”. There are usually 2 spangles at home, occasionally 3 when we have the liver and whites sister round, and the wife is warming to a further pup, probably early next year.
If a Lemon & White materialises it may be sooner.
 
Last edited:
The excellent UK Paranormal Database has been updated and there is a new 2020 apparition sighting from ny neck of the woods-ish:

Shadowy Figure​



Location: Plymouth (Devon) - Plym Valley Trail, viaduct bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 01 February 2020, 21:30h
Further Comments: A couple spotted a male figure wearing contemporary clothing standing completely still in the middle of a viaduct bridge. Concerned for the man's safety, the couple called out 'are you okay?', only to watch him drift to the edge of the bridge and vanish before their eyes.


https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/recent/index.php


It is definitely worth having a scroll through these latest cases as there are some more from the 20th/21st Century in amongst the interesting but frustrating 'date unknown' ones and the local legends.
 
Last edited:
Although about a year later:

"A teenage boy has sadly died after slipping and falling off a bridge in Estover.

Devon and Cornwall Police officers were called to the Riverford Woods area of Plymbridge Woods at approximately 5pm on Saturday, May 15, after receiving reports that a teenager had slipped and fallen off the Riverford Viaduct.

The air ambulance and the Dartmoor Search and Rescue team were sent to the scene, but sadly emergency service personnel found the 17-year-old, who was from the local area, deceased.

A spokesperson for the police said his death is not currently being treated as suspicious.

His next-of-kin have been informed and a file is being prepared for the coroner."

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/teenage-boy-dies-after-slipping-5424899


4463361_7bc86059.jpeg


(I will add that we are of course talking about the tragic death of teenage boy and that I am not making light of his unfortunate demise)
 
Last edited:
After a little research I have found that one of the tunnels along this route is supposedly haunted:

"Another ghostly manifestation of Leighbeer tunnel is of a male who is said to have fallen from a train and later died from his injuries. A marrow chilling site of a figure hanging from the tunnel entrance has been witnessed in the past"

https://www.facebook.com/HauntedPly...-as-shaugh-tunnel-was-once-p/893112900808254/
 
I've found a couple - Glen and myself (so many years ago it hurts to think about it (ouch! About 40 :()):

View attachment 56249

Our two dogs at the time; Andy and Glen* in uncharacteristic laid-back mode:

View attachment 56250

* Also known as: the "Gruesome Twosome", the "Terrible Twins" or "Those Bloody Greedy Spaniels!".
Also love the mustard coloured (I think?) Vauxhall!
 
Also love the mustard coloured (I think?) Vauxhall
Not ours at the time I'm afraid. My father did have a Chevette as his 'office car' but I suspect at the time we were on holiday with the Volvo estate.
This was at Fearnan on Loch Tay, as far as I recall.
 
Just digressing; all that work that went into viaducts like this just for them to end up being unused after a few years (by trains). A crying shame imo.
So true. Blood, swear, tears and, for some navvies, death. The good news is that there is a preserved section in the Plym Valley, so the railway has not ‘died’ entirely and also the remainder of the route has preserved as a cycle route and not built over:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_and_Tavistock_Railway

This line closed before Beeching as it was essentially a ’duplicate/parallel’ branch line built from Plymouth to Tavistock during the heyday of Victorian railway fever. The competing Southern region route from Plymouth via Tavistock to Exeter was a mainline and is still open between Exeter and Okehampton and Plymouth and Bere Alston (8 miles short of Tavistock).. There has been a lot of campaigning to reopen the entire line:

https://www.themoorlander.co.uk/plans-to-reopen-tavistock-to-plymouth-rail-line-gather-pace/
 
Just digressing; all that work that went into viaducts like this just for them to end up being unused after a few years (by trains). A crying shame imo.
I'm not interested in bungee-jumping but would quite like a swing (or swing boat) suspended in one of the arches.
 
If you're not interested in ghosts, you may still be interested in her clothing's neckline!
Either way, a revealing program!
 
When my parents learned of my fascination of all things paranormal they opened up to me about their experiences of ghosts. When we were watching the Michael Aspel Strange but true Series one evening (I think it was the Borley Rectory Episode) my Mum calmly said to me "our first house was haunted". "What?" I replied. "You are joking?" I added. It was a bit of a shock to me as they had never mentioned anything about this before. My parents both said it was no joke and told me all about the ghost.

They bought their first house in the 1970's. It was a two bedroom terraced house in Badshot Lea, Surrey, near the working Men's club.
My Mum was the first to notice something odd was happening. My parents had a large laundry basket with a heavy lid in one of the rooms upstairs. One day she returned home from work to find the lid across the other side of the room. She put it back on the basket and thought it was my Dad but didn't mention it when he got home. The next day the same thing happened so my Mum asked my Dad if he had taken the lid off the basket. He said that it was not him as he hadn't put anything in there yet that day.
This regularly continued to happen. On one occasion my Dad arrived home first and he found the lid on the other side of the room.
They even ended up putting heavy objects on top of the lid on the basket to stop it moving but they still found the lid and the objects on the floor when they got home in the evenings. They stopped putting the lid on the basket.
After this disturbance had stopped my Mum was at home alone and a Man shouted "I am still here you know!" She looked out of the upstairs front window to see if there was anyone outside (perhaps merry from a visit to the Working Men's club) and then ran to the back window. Nobody about anywhere. So she shouted "Well you can bugg*r off. This is my house." She didn't hear anything else after this.
A little while after this one of my Mum's friends visited her for tea and cake in the afternoon. A few weeks later my Mum was talking to her friend at work about Ghosts and mentioned what had been occurring in the house. My Mum's friend then said "Well, I didn't want to mention it at the time as I didn't want you to think I was being rude but it was bloody freezing in your house when I visited."
My Mum replied "Oh, I know. That room never gets warm, even with the fire on full blast and with the door shut."
After this my parents moved to the house they live in now.
I never experienced the haunted house as I did not come along until the 1980's.
There is clearly still something happening in my parents first house though as it has been put up for sale many times since they lived there. One occupant removed the beautiful stained glass front door. Not long after it was removed it was reinstated again. Did they annoy the ghost I wonder?

My Dad also told me about the house he lived in as a child. He grew up in Wrecclesham in Farnham, Surrey. He said that there was a horrible atmosphere in the house. My Dad slept in the same room as his brother. One night his brother was awoken by the terrifying sensation of someone grabbing him round the throat but there was no one there. After this incident my Dad and his brother slept with their heads under their covers every night!
 
Wow that’s fantastic.Not so good for your mum and dad though.
Was the haunting a regular thing ie every day or two or a bit more sporadic
 
Wow that’s fantastic.Not so good for your mum and dad though.
Was the haunting a regular thing ie every day or two or a bit more sporadic

I asked my Mum earlier about this again as I couldn't remember exactly what she said to me recently as we spoke about my parents haunted house at Halloween this year as the subject came up again.

Today she told me that the laundry basket lid disturbance happened every day. She added that the scary thing was that she found the lid standing up in lots of different places. It was never in the same place. I also have a correction to my earlier post. The basket lid disturbance continued until they moved out. Apologies for my error.
My Mum also added that there was an uncomfortable atmosphere in the house and she felt like someone was always watching her.
Her friend at work also said the same thing about her visit. She felt very uncomfortable but did not say so until later.
My Mum also gave me a bit of history about the house. The row of terraced houses in Badshot Lea were originally built for farm workers in the local area.

Chatting about Ghosts this evening made my Mum reveal a story about her parents house in Aldershot which I had never heard before.
My Grandparents had a haunted bedroom!
Not long after moving in they were alarmed to wake up with something pressing down on their chests. Sometimes it would be one of them, other times it would be both at the same time.
This happened several times. They did not tell their children (My Mum and her three Sisters) about this as they didn't want to scare them after just moving in.
My Mum's sisters refused to go in the room due to the nasty atmosphere.
My Grandad decided to have a look around the house to see if he could find anything unusual. He found an old Union Jack coffin burial shroud placed on a ledge up the chimney. He quickly burned it in a bonfire in the garden the same day. They also called in a priest to bless the house after finding the item up the chimney. After this the night time disturbances stopped completely.
I certainly look at this house in a different light now.
 
I was helping someone out doing some work at a school a couple of weeks ago and, having finished in one particular room, I got my 'Henry' hoover out to vacuum the floor. I always pull out quite a bit of the cable before starting as the cable gets warm if still on the reel. I plugged it into an adjacent wall socket and began to vacuum the short section of carpet tiles nearby. I had my back to the socket and within a few seconds of starting, the vac stopped. I looked around and the plug was lying on the floor.
There was only the two of us working in the school (it was half term) and at first I thought my mate had unplugged it for a laugh but the school is a kind of 'U' shape and glancing out of the window I saw him walking out of the main hall into the playground a few hundred yards away.
It was quite baffling and I couldn't quite believe it -I tried the plug in the socket again to see if it was unusually loose but it felt normal and needed a bit of a tug to get it out. I also wondered if I had somehow caught the cable with my foot (although I hadn't felt anything) and pulled it out, so tried this from different angles but no chance, also with so much cable pulled out from the machine there was plenty of slack plus I was only about 2m at most away from the socket and to the right of it when it came out. I even wondered if I hadn't pushed the plug right in and tested that but it wouldn't work at all then. Quite weird! I wasn't vacuuming directly away from the socket either but at right angles to it so I would have been more likely to pull the cable from the plug if I had caught it with my foot, which I was certain I hadn't anyway.
 
Found this today: A compilation of "true" stories collected or experienced by the author, and narrated by him on YouTube.
I'm finding them very pleasant and engaging listening.

"A short story in (simplified) Dublin dialect, related by the author, Turlough Conmee. This is one of "Thirteen Tales Told by a Dubliner", a collection of 13 stories of the supernatural. They are all "true": they stem either from the author's experience, or from tales told by his father and mother, Dublin folklore, or Irish history."
 
Found this today: A compilation of "true" stories collected or experienced by the author, and narrated by him on YouTube.
I'm finding them very pleasant and engaging listening.

"A short story in (simplified) Dublin dialect, related by the author, Turlough Conmee. This is one of "Thirteen Tales Told by a Dubliner", a collection of 13 stories of the supernatural. They are all "true": they stem either from the author's experience, or from tales told by his father and mother, Dublin folklore, or Irish history."
I remember Dr Who having a companion called Turlough. It was the first time I'd ever heard or seen the name. This is just the second. Is it a common Irish name?
 
Back
Top