• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Weird Sheffield?

evilsprout

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jul 27, 2001
Messages
1,217
Jack Skellington, Dan Higginbottom, Auntie Peach, Crafty Barnardo, Martin Jeffreys and all the other Sheffieldians...

I'm writing an article at the moment, and need information about any weird goings on around the Norton, Woodseats and Hemsworth area, especially around Graves Park, Norton Church and Bunting Nook.

Any info is grist to my mill!

Ta,

Sprout.
 
So, I get called out of retirement to deal with this. It's a bit like Clint Eastwood in 'Firefox' (note the emphasis on 'a bit').

Now let me think.

Graves Park has a number of incidents on record, mainly those collected by Valerie Salem in the 1980s. If you don't have copies of her books, I can supply info.

The churchyard at Norton has a ghostly knight, looking for his lost intestines (they were pickled for transportation back from the Crusades; you know what second class post is like). It is also said to have a tunnel leading to Beauchief Abbey, which is haunted by a White Lady; male and female principals, symbolic of something else, IMHO.

Bunting Nook: you know the Green Man story. I've marched up and down it in the dead of night with no obvious consequences (apart from scaring the shit out of myself).

I did catch a glimpse of a blurred figure through the window of a house nearby once, but that could just have been me.

I know a number of people who claim to have seen odd white shapes in the woods at the top of Cobnar road, also in the woods near Barber's field (if you know where that is). One of these was described as being 'like a bear' which I thought rang oddly true.

My entire family watched a squirming blob of orange light move slowly across the sky over Woodseats about five years ago. A local pilot flew over the top of it (in a plane, fools) and gave much the same description. Sadly, I was elsewhere that night (typical).

That enough? I'm sure I've got more should you need it. ULs, school ghosts, dead men walking, goths in the cemetary (not Fortean but fairly spooky).

It's because I can think in Russian, isn't it?

(returns to the void)
 
Dan > Just the kind of post I was hoping for, thanks!

I've got the usual Salim, Clarke, Roberts et al books of strange local phenomena, but there's quite a bit there I've not seen before. Any more info, including the school ghosts and ULs etc would be fantastic.

Incidentally the house you saw the figure in wasn't Norton Grange was it?
 
No, it was an 1800s house, not far away, a little more towards Gleadless valley school.

School ghosts: can't vouch for all of these. So I'll categorise into UL and ones where I knew a witness:

UL: Rowlinson caretakers repeatedly see lonely boy wandering on playing fields who vanishes.
Teachers refuse to use certain rooms for no obvious reason
...etc

Witnesses (not that it makes a difference): various Rowlinson ouija sessions ended badly. Minor polt outbreaks, my sister saw some chairs move, friend of hers felt hand grab arm.
Ouija tried again, six years later (my year) with similar results. I saw some windows bang open in a way they never did before or after. Someone claimed to have seen 'satanic writing' appear on a mirror, but I suspect that to be something in the manner of a fib.

It was a very interesting time, sociologically speaking, both times around. Moral panics in action, religious revivals amongst the young etc.

Oh, forgot this one: someone I know passed a man on Woodseats late one night. Shock moment: realised that he'd died a few months previously.

Do you think everywhere has this level of stuff or do we have a minor window area going on? Thinking about it, the ghostly guy I just mentioned was seen at the bottom end of Cobnar road. There's a very tight geographical area involved here.

This post is rambling a bit; I'm very tired (told you not to get me out of retirement). If I've not been clear on a point you find interesting, ask me in the morning (as it were).
 
Yeah, I started looking into Bunting Nook, and realised there was a lot of activity not just in the Nook but the immediate adjoining areas such as Graves Park and Norton Church. Clarke suggests its all on an ancient alignment, which adds to the theory.

I'd love more info on the Knight and his entrails (it'll wait til morning, though!). Plus can you give me any good sources apart from the obvious Clarkes, Salims etc?
 
I would have posted sooner, but I've been drunk for a week. Because I'm classy, obviously. I'm thinking about getting a rusty old car on bricks and a few refrigerators for the front garden next.

I think the source for the knight was Salim, as I recall. Not much more info then that, other then he was a crusader who was packed ready for assembly. There's always a few screws missing, aren't there?

Sadly, apart from VS and David Clarke I don't really know of any other sources. I suspect that you, like me, have spent many painful hours with the microfiche reader in central library, looking over ancient copies of the Star.

I see from another post that the Sprout went to Norton College.
Did I mention that was indeed the self same haunted school I discussed earlier? In it's former incarnation as Rowlinson Comp, that is. I was amongst the last pupils taught there, about 40 of us in a semi-derelict building designed for 2500...rather spooky actually. They'd erect temporary walls (whilst the builders were remodelling the place as the college) and the whole floor plan would change mid lesson. Rather confusing, as I recall.
 
Sorry I did not see your post earlier - here are a few scraps that may be interesting..

Norton Church:

1840 - The Parish Clerk of Norton in Derbyshire and his apprentice went to play the organ then standing in the west gallery of the church. The apprentice whose face was turned towards the nave of the church, told the clerk that he could see a woman sitting alone in one of the high cloth-covered pews, and that he believed her to be spectral. Thereupon they both rushed frantically down the steps, which were very tortuous and awkward. The clerk would never afain play the organ in church in the dusk of evening. (SO Addy Traditional Remains)

Haunted Furniture Store:
Ashes of woman are blamed for ghostly goings-on at furniture store
Second-hand furniture dealer Roy Brook is desperate to give back something he acquired during a house clearance – because its haunting his shop.
Weird things have been happening at the Abbey Secondhand Centre, Chesterfield Road, Woodseats, for about nine months, he said.
Sofas and heavy wardrobes left at one side of the ship are often transported to the other side overnight.
Phones are left off the hook, pictures move from one wall to another, tables turn, rugs roll up and sideboards shift. But this week, Roy said somebody walked into the shop who helped him indentify what was causing the freaky fun and games.
He said:”A gipsy lady came into the shop selling lucky charms. I’d never met her before in my life, but she seemed to know me.
“The she started going on about a presence she could feel in the shop and asked if she could go into the cellar.”
Downstairs, the woman started to rummage among the many crates and boxes stacked on the cellar floor.
After a while she came running back upstairs, shouting that she had indentified the source of the problem.
Roy said “She took me to the far corner of the cellar and pointed to a box. I nearly died when I opened it and found there was an urn of ashes inside.”
Roy believes the ashes must have been taken during a house clearance – but he has no idea which one.
“We do so many,” he said “All I know is that the gipsy woman says the urn contains a female spirit who will not rest until she in reunited with her family.”
“I only hope that somebody out there might know who they are so I can get shut of the urn once and for all.” The Star 17th May 1999

**Roy closed his business six months later. A double-glazing window shop has opened in its place, I visited the present occupiers who stated that there has been no paranormal activity since. Was Roy looking to promote his business through this tale? Or when Roy moved did he take the haunted urn with him?

If I remember right, David Clarke's ghost alignment finished at Beauchief Hall - Do you want any ghost stories from there?
 
Wierd Sheffield?

Hi all, this is my first post so be gentle...

I've just moved from Scotland to Sheffield and quite apart from the culture shock, it strikes me as being a bit of an odd place.

There's no particular reason for this that I can see, but evidently it is a strong enough feeling because a few other people have mentioned having it to me.

I've done a search which pulled up some interesting things, like the Stocksbridge Bypass ghosts, but does anyone on the board have any other fortean stories from the Sheffield area to share?
 
There used to be a strong contingent of Sheffield folk on the Board and the place was tipped to be among the most haunted places in Britain. As it happens, York won the prize.

Must be some threads remaining. Young Sprout used to post a lot of interesting Yorkshire stuff. Time we heard from him again methinks.

Meanwhile, sheaf-underground, I assume you know about mysterymag:

http://www.mysterymag.com/whatsnew/

Time I caught up with that again too. :)
 
I just wanted to say hello from another fortean sheffielder :D I currently work near the market area of town centre in the hartshead goverment building, formally the corparation nightclub. our carpark I am quite sure has a presence and I am certain that it is a female. Although there are tales of a male who haunts the building from the days of the old cavendish nightclub aside from the odd coldspot in the basement floor I have never had any concrete proof of this
 
welcome, HP :)

Hartshead square is said to have a couple of apparitions. A bomb hit the old Corporation/Cairo Jacks/Government offies site during WWII, apparently burying several people. When Corporation took over the former Cairo Jacks club, staff were pretty much terrorised by a presence, to the point where they had a priest in to exorcise it! I've also heard tales of a male, bucket-carrying apparition that's been seen in the square itself.
 
Yes I heard the tale from the old night club, basically no one would go into the basement of the building alone. I work in the basement section and have to admit that certain parts of the office allways feel freezing cold. but as yet I have not seen any solid evidence of haunting. The carpark mind that's a different story, it's located right at the back of the basement (where I hang out to smoke) once I had the feeling someone had walked right through me all my hairs stood up and I was goosebumpy.
I am pretty sure that whatever it was it had a female feel to it not scary but very sad
 
Back
Top