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Your Scariest Ghost?

bugmum said:
The Newby church ghost. I really dislike that picture, and do my best to avoid it if I know it's coming up. Coming across it unexpectedly gives me the wiggins.
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It's OK, I found out it was a hoax, so it's not scary anymore. Er, no, I don't want to look at it again to be sure, thanks.
 
GNC said:
It's OK, I found out it was a hoax, so it's not scary anymore. Er, no, I don't want to look at it again to be sure, thanks.
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Really? I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better about it or not! And what disturbed person thought it was a good idea to create such a hoax to unleash on the world?
 
I always thought that the Newby Spectre was never conclusively proven to be a hoax? Either way, it's a really powerful image. I remember the mass hysteria it caused at school when that a book featuring the picture turned up in the library.
 
bugmum said:
Really? I'm not sure if that makes me feel any better about it or not! And what disturbed person thought it was a good idea to create such a hoax to unleash on the world?
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Hazy memories, but I believe he was a church minister or something? Maybe we shouldn't be surprised if he was!
 
GNC said:
Hazy memories, but I believe he was a church minister or something? Maybe we shouldn't be surprised if he was!
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In which case, he'd better not be counting on automatic entry to the Pearly Gates. A man of the cloth should know better. (Not wishing to start any arguments about the morality of ministers, you understand.)
 
I've tried to look into it but accurate record are very hard to find. I have a few newspaper reports from the last 100 years and details do vary.

Bannister Hall did exist near Walton Le Dale. Ladywell Street has changed massively, all the old houses long since demolished and student accomodation now sits there. I also couldn't find any record of a marker stone there.

Also the church was she was allegedly buried no longer exists and the grave were re-interred elsewhere.

Like a lot of legends it tends to crumble to dust on closer examination. I wondered if it was a moral tale to frighten people in what was a very Catholic stronghold. Interestingly, the dividing line between Catholic and Protestant areas was around Walton Le Dale, if a girl was seeing someone of the wrong religion, who knows.

As an aside legend has it James I gave the name to sirloin steak at Houghton Tower after he knighted a piece of steak, saying "arise Sir Loin".
 
bugmum said:
The Newby church ghost. I really dislike that picture, and do my best to avoid it if I know it's coming up. Coming across it unexpectedly gives me the wiggins.
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That photo is such an obvious hoax, it's embarrassing. Never have two holes been cut in a more blatant pillowcase.
 
When younger, the 'child standing in the burning building photograph' gave me the shivers.

Could somebody refresh my memory?

It was a silhouette at an upstairs balcony of a building engulfed by flames.

Coffee hasn't started working yet...
 
Yithian said:
When younger the ''child' standing in the burning building photograph' gave me the shivers.

Could somebody refresh my memory?

It was a silhouette at an upstairs balcony of a building engulfed by flames.

Coffee hasn't started working yet...
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Wem, 19th November 1995. The town hall burnt down overnight and a local photographer took a photograph claiming to show a ghost. Later shown to be a cut out from a post card

.
6D13F2C6-7864-46C7-9F63-7BD39E5F33B6.jpeg
 
Somewhere on this forum it has been debunked by some eagle eyed person who apparently noticed a postcard with the very same young child on it.

I was always impressed by it but sadly that's another one gone.
 
gordonrutter said:
The debunking is covered nicely by the link Titch provided, includes the original postcard.
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1. That's the D*aily M*il, no thanks.
2. The magazine articles were perfectly good. The photo itself was a bit of a sensation at the time.
 
Spudrick68 said:
I've tried to look into it but accurate record are very hard to find. I have a few newspaper reports from the last 100 years and details do vary.

Bannister Hall did exist near Walton Le Dale. Ladywell Street has changed massively, all the old houses long since demolished and student accomodation now sits there. I also couldn't find any record of a marker stone there.

Also the church was she was allegedly buried no longer exists and the grave were re-interred elsewhere.
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I've spent a few minutes looking at this.

The supposed locus of the murder, from an OS map of 1909:

Ladywell-Heatley-Streets-Preston-1909.jpg


The location of the church where Dorothy was supposedly buried - The Church of the Holy Trinity, Preston - was about 365 yards NE of the murder site on Patten Street:

Distance-Patten-to-Ladywell-Streets-Preston.jpg


I think we're talking about the upper right "Bannister Hall" here:

Bannister-Hall-X2-Preston-circled.jpg


I believe that this is Bannister Hall as seen in the Fifties:

Bannister-Hall-Higher-Walton-Preston-c-1950.jpg


A Flickr genealogy thread on the site.

Again, I believe that it's long gone, and the site appears now to be occupied by a garden supplies business:

Bannister-Hall-landscape-suppliers-Preston.jpg


B.H. Landscape Suppliers

The supposed murder site today:

Junction_Ladywell,_Heatley_Streets_Preston.jpg


Ladywell Street running from centre to 2 o'clock; Heatley Street from centre to 4 o'clock

One major issue I have with the whole tale is this: If you form the impulse to "Wicked Sir Jasper" your errant daughter, why drag her all the way from your isolated home in the country to a street corner in the centre of the nearest town to do the deed?

Distance_Bannister_Hall_Ladywell_St.jpg


That's 3.24 miles as the crow flies; 4.33 miles by modern roads, courtesy of FreeMapTools. Surely there were whips and disused mine shafts nearer the Hall?

maximus otter
 
I'm not sure about the disused mine shafts. My apologies re the Church. I was under the impression that it was the former church behind Friargate which is now a car park.

a lot of things don't add up. Several reports over the years allege that apparitions were seen walking up Winckley Square near the centre. Although the Catholic College is at the end of that street and a Covent once stood on the corner of Winckley Square / Fishergate it doesn't really make sense.

It's a few years ago when i looked into it. If I haven't lost the digital folder I keep stuff in I'll add more on here.
 
titch said:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-mystery-resolved-eagled-eyed-pensioner.html
This one?
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gordonrutter said:
Wem, 19th November 1995. The town hall burnt down overnight and a local photographer took a photograph claiming to show a ghost. Later shown to be a cut out from a post card

.View attachment 30750
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Sorry, was busy--yes, that's the one.

I had no idea it had been debunked or supposedly debunked.

At least, I thought that was the one, but that's too late to be properly considered 'my childhood', so there's either another, earlier 'guy in the fire' photograph or I've conflated two memories.
 
Scariest ghost story I’ve heard — or one of them (mind’s like an attic full of dusty lumber at the mo’ sorry). I heard this when I was a lot younger and still remember it.

It was the classic ‘phantom hitchhiker’ with a twist, and told to me by someone who was a bit of a raconteur and used to scare me rigid with his ghost stories (one of my uncle’s).

The story went that a man (let’s call him Pete for no reason) moved from town to a rural village and was getting to know the locals over a few pints in the pub. They were a friendly lot, and the conversation got into local folklore and ghosts.

The nearest market town (where most people shopped) was a few miles away, and there was the quick route to it, or one that was a bit longer.

‘Take the longer one,’ the locals advised. ‘At least when it’s dark. There’s a ghost with no face who haunts that road through the ‘avenue’.’

The ‘avenue’ was so called as the road from the village ran between tall dark trees. It was gloomy even in full daylight.

Pete laughed it off, and when he needed to shop, of course he used the quick route, but as autumn drew on and the nights crept in, he found himself alone on that road at night. In the day there were local buses and cars etc, but never after dark.

One night there was a mist turning to drizzle and then to rain, and as he returned from town with his weekly shop, he saw a man walking ahead of him wearing a long wind-cheater or cagoule. Pete thought it was a local going to the village and drew up, offering a lift. The man thanked him and got into the passager seat, still muffled up in a hood and scarf against the weather, and Pete drove on.

‘Where d’you want to be dropped off?’ he asked.

‘The end of the avenue will be fine,’ his passenger said.

Peter said he would take the man into the village if he wanted, but no, the end of the avenue would be fine. The car drove on into the gloom of the trees and as it was coming to the end of the avenue Pete pulled in at a lay-by.

The passenger thanked him and reached for the door-handle and Pete laughed and said, ‘I only moved to (village) a few months ago. They told me in the pub never to drive this way at night, because a ghost with no face haunts it.’

The passenger paused and turned to look at him.

‘What,’ he said. ‘Like me?’
 
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