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Haunted Shops

MorningAngel

MorningAngel

Justified & Ancient
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
3,216
I’ve looked but I didn’t know where to put this. I’m sure it’ll be moved if there’s somewhere.

I wondered if anyone had heard if Harry Selfridge haunts Selfridges. Because it seems like he would. He haunted it from the outside while he was still alive.
 
MorningAngel said:
I’ve looked but I didn’t know where to put this. I’m sure it’ll be moved if there’s somewhere.

I wondered if anyone had heard if Harry Selfridge haunts Selfridges. Because it seems like he would. He haunted it from the outside while he was still alive.
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Even if Harry isn't being spooky it's a good thread title. I also think he'd haunt it. Massive turnaround of fortunes.
 
MorningAngel said:
I’ve looked but I didn’t know where to put this. I’m sure it’ll be moved if there’s somewhere.

I wondered if anyone had heard if Harry Selfridge haunts Selfridges. Because it seems like he would. He haunted it from the outside while he was still alive.
Click to expand...
I couldn't tell you about Harry Selfridge, the only haunted shop that springs to mind was the haunted Toys R Us in Sunnydale, California ..

http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/index.php/ghosts/ghost-photos/95-toys-r-us-ghost-photo
 
I usually work in a haunted shop but I’ve been sent to a different branch which is only a few years old. The Sainsburys that it’s in has been there a while but there were factories there before. But I’ve not had anything spooky there, mores the shame.
 
A shop we rented and used as a retail gift store was definitely haunted. It was the town's original bakery footsteps could often be heard on the timber floors when we were closed. Greeting cards were often messed up and left askew after being tidied at the end of the day and very rarely, you'd catch a glimpse of a fleeting shadow moving across a hallway from doorway to doorway.
There was never a sinister feeling and we never felt uncomfortable. It was just something, or someone who was there.
 
I've definitely mentioned somewhere on another thread (possibly a railway related one) about a supermarket in Glossop, in the High Peak, that is built on the site of an old sidings - and supposedly haunted by the ghost of a ganger who was killed while working there.

Edit: Thought so: The old Supermarket Blues thread - alongside other store related oddness (not necessarily ghost related).
 
I don't know if this counts strictly as a shop but I used to live and work in a three story building that consisted of the ground floor chip shop, first floor Bistro and top floor flat that was haunted.

It was originally a flour mill. An old bloke who also worked there past retirement age and part time (and had worked there as a young lad when it was the mill) refused to ever go in the top floor toilet because he said the room was haunted. I'd ran a romantic bath for my then girlfriend, candles, music etc, there was no draft in the room but we watched candle flames briefly burn sideways, windows and the door closed ... all of us heard the heavy wooden furniture being dragged across the floor in the locked Bistro one night despite the room being carpeted and the room being empty, things would switch themselves on an off, we had the feeling we were being watched often and would turn around to speak to each other to find no one was there, sudden temperature and mood drops and the light sound of a woman's footsteps, we'd smell flowers or perfume .. loads of weird stuff. The Bistro's kitchen door had a window in it, one night I walked past and thought I saw my mate's Dad lit up in the dark kitchen by the wall mounted fly zapper. When I went in to ask him what he was doing, there was nobody there. I remember seeing the elderly gentleman in profile, very much like King George the 3rd looks like on an old coin.

One night I'd had an unsettling dream there: I was walking up a hill towards a car parked at the top, the back door was open and their was a plastic bag on the back seat. I opened the bag and it contained a dead baby. When I told my girlfriend about this, she decided she'd had enough and being a local girl, she asked around about the building. She discovered that the place had been a similar business in the early 60's, chip shop, cafe and private flats run by a husband and wife. They'd hired a young woman to work their but he'd had a secret affair with her. His wife found out, got in her car, drove to the top of nearby hill and killed herself. She was pregnant but hadn't told her husband.

Myself, Mike and Jez had already realised the ghost was female when we were decorating the Bistro and building the bar. We'd become used to her and felt she was watching over us. We thanked her when the room was ready and left a drink on the bar for her.

Again, I don't know if that counts as a shop. This all happened in Oakham, Leister. The place is a financial advisors now as far as I can see from Google streetview.

Ironically, even though I go on ghost investigations these days, The Catmose Fish Bar in Oakham in '97 remains the most haunted place I've ever been. I'd love to do an investigation there nowadays.

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@52.669333,-0.72679,97h,-9.31p,1z
 
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DrPaulLee said:
Fortnum and Masons in London had a huge number of ghosts, documented by the store's archivist. I say "had" because none of them have been experienced recently.
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I think Fortnum & Mason reported ghosts of Sailors (if memory serves me right) as the building had Joists & Pillars which belonged to an old `navy` ship used in its construction!!!!
 
York has lots of haunted shops, apparently.

I worked with a guy who is now a postman, who swore that the CostCutter in Helmsley had a ghost. There are so many random happenings in our shop that it's hard to say whether it's haunted or just very badly built.
 
Bororeturn1 said:
I think Fortnum & Mason reported ghosts of Sailors (if memory serves me right) as the building had Joists & Pillars which belonged to an old `navy` ship used in its construction!!!!
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I bet there’s a lot of lonely and confused shop ghosts these days. I know the ones in our shop will wonder where we’ve gone. Shame we’re not coming back.
 
The next town along'ere has by some miracle preserved many of its quaint mediaeval pubs and other buildings. We used to go there for a stroll in the summer and pop into charity shops.

One young shop assistant confided to us that he'd had a shock in the stockroom area when things moved around on their own. We were fascinated! The shop is, we were informed, famously haunted and some staff won't go into certain rooms alone.

This was in an ancient building, Elizabethan or Jacobean, all black and white with exposed beams inside.

I'll definitely pop back once it's safe to do so, see if I can learn more.
 
The old Debenhams (sadly, now empty) in Salisbury was haunted. If I remember rightly it was the restaurant at the back of the 1st floor. Never went in there myself, the restaurant that is.
I think I read somewhere that the shop that is now a Subway had some spooky goings on when it was some sort of burlesque emporium.
Probably a lot of ghosts in the city, plenty of old buildings anyway!
 
There was this shop in Hounslow High Street don t know if it's still there. But an independent furniture shop. I can't remember the name, must've been 6 years ago I have just moved from Chiswick to Twickenham and was looking for cheap furniture. Well I went inside. It felt alright. Went up stairs then that's when I started to feel really uncomfortable in my tummy. Feeling something other than the humans are watching me. There are these little blue led lights on the walls here and there. It just kept feeling the evil in the room was growing. I don't think it was ghosts. It was demonic in nature, I could feel it's heat. There was so much blue in there aswell. The walls were dark polished blue, blue strip lights in them. It felt like the most uncomfortable place I'd ever been it felt like the most evilist place I'd ever been to. I went back downstairs but the feeling was just the same. I looked at the shop workers then I left. I did mean to go back later down the line, to try and purge the place, but I never got around to it. What if I lost? And whatever it was decided to follow me.
 
Sainsbury's in Hereford is reputed to be haunted-

From the Haunted Hereford FB page

"This is the last place where you would expect to find a ghost story, this is a very modern superstore that has many shoppers through its doors daily and it is not an old building.
There are many ghost stories that come from this store, the stories are similar as it is only one ghost that haunts the building, and this is a ghost of an old Lady .
There has been alot of sightings of this old Lady. She does a lot of waving and smiling at people. One morning at 4am a member of staff came in to open the store, he saw the old lady as he was unlocking the Fire Exits, the old Lady was stood there waving at him. The lady appeared so clear that the man waved back thinking it was a customer only to suddenly realize that it was 4 am in the morning and no one was in there shopping! The man walked over to the lady to ask her to leave the store and found that she simply disappeared into thin air.
A similar story was when the manager once saw the old lady in the corner of her eye, the manager asked her to go and do something, obviously thinking it was a member of staff, after this a member of staff popped her head around the corner and asked the manager who she was speaking to, the manager looked to where she saw the old Lady only to find that she had gone. The staff who work in Sainsbury's say that there is a presence and a feeling of being watched but the ghost seems to be a nice, friendly spirit.
Sainsbury's supermarket was built on the old Barton Railway Station, in 1934 a G. V Bennett was in charge, the station was used for goods as well".
 
I’ve been in several branches of IKEA, and in every one, all of the staff members had apparently been translated to a different plane of existence.

Especially when l needed help with something heavy.

maximus otter
 
Crown Walk in Bicester is a small arcade built on the site of a former coaching inn. I used to work in one of the shops there and whilst it wasn't haunted (that I'm aware of), I did hear about another store and their haunted stock room. I can't remember which building, as this was a good 20 years ago, but there was a dark and oppressive feeling in the room, they felt they were being watched, and never wanted to be in there alone. Standard stuff!

I can't remember all the details as it was so long ago, and at the time I was compiling stories of local hauntings to put into a book. I only had a handful, if I remember rightly, but helpfully I can't find them now. Either I didn't digitise them or I did and never put them in the cloud.
 
I vaguely remember hearing something about the Morrisons branch in Sheffield on the site of the old barracks having had some kind of apparition. I used to go in there a lot back in the day. Their toffees were nice.
 
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