Haunted Peak District E-Book

Jill Armitage

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 176

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

The Peak District of Derbyshire is said to experience more bizarre happenings and unexplainable encounters than any other part of England. This chilling collection of true-life tales details many terrifying accounts of spectres and apparitions which have been documented over the years. Ranging from private residences and graveyards to public houses, tourist attractions, theatres and museums, this book includes many pulse-raising narratives that are guaranteed to make your blood run cold. Containing over sixty illustrations, Haunted Peak District will appeal to everyone with an interest in the supernatural history of this part of Derbyshire.

Leseprobe

HAUNTED

PEAK DISTRICT

HAUNTED

PEAK DISTICT

JILL ARMITAGE

First published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Jill Armitage, 2009, 2013

The right of Jill Armitage to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5261 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.

Unexplained Phenomena in this Bleak and Pleasant Land

2.

Idols, Heathen Gods and Nature Spirits

3.

Road and Rail Frights

4.

Beasts, Bones and Odours

INTRODUCTION

The hills and valleys of the Peak District have always been fertile grounds for strange observations and happenings. For centuries, the level of extraordinary phenomena reported from the bleak moors and valley hamlets has been far beyond that experienced virtually anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. Scratch the surface of the heather-covered moorlands and you’ll find supernatural stories from the Dark Ages, because the Peak District is a place where ancient customs and traditions have been retained alongside old beliefs and superstitions. It’s a place of living legends that are eroded as slowly as the landscape itself.

The Peak District covers the whole of the west side of Derbyshire and spills over into Staffordshire, Cheshire and West Yorkshire, but the name itself is a misnomer. There is no single gigantic mountain peak where climbers struggle to reach the summit, despite the fact that at times Kinder Scout (636m) and Bleaklow (628m) put on a passable impression of authentic Alpine conditions. The name actually comes from the old English word peac which, in the tenth century, meant hill or knoll. The tribes who inhabited the region at this time were known as the ‘Pecsaetan’ or ‘Peak Dwellers’ and the area retains a long tradition of lead mining and hill farming.

More than 20 million visitors enjoy the Peak District splendour every year but within the 555 miles2 (1,437km2) there are two distinct areas, the White Peak and the Dark Peak. The White Peak takes its name from the rolling limestone dales of the south with their lush lowlands and wooded slopes. This is an area of steep-sided, limestone gorges and bright-green fields criss-crossed by dry stone walls. It’s dotted with villages that manage to retain their old-world atmosphere alongside modern amenities.

In contrast, the gritstone of the Dark Peak to the north with its remote, mysterious hills has a rugged, austere beauty. There is something particularly eerie about those featureless, lonely landscapes where the hazy horizon seems to stretch into eternity, and sounds echo from miles around. These windswept moorlands in less favourable weather can be very inhospitable, despite being surrounded by some of the largest industrial conurbations and sandwiched between two of the North’s largest cities, Manchester and Sheffield. This is a remote highland region and a number of people who have ventured onto these desolate hills have reported a brooding, elemental presence and a chilling silence. A strange noise or an indefinable shape looming out of a cloudy mist can set the imagination running riot. Could it be a demonic beast or an alien spaceship? People report hearing the marching feet of a legion of Roman soldiers along the lonely moorland expanse of Bleaklow and should you look up you may see phantom bombers flying silently across the sky as they did sixty years ago.

The Peak District is a place where ancient customs and traditions have been retained. A spinner demonstrates at Chatsworth Game Fair, 2008.

Dark country lanes and moorland roads harbour a multitude of supernatural horrors. Headless horsemen, ghostly carriages and phantom motor vehicles patrol lonely highways, and beware of phantom hitch-hikers and crossroads haunted by a host of spectres, witches and boggarts. Stories of the mysterious and supernatural still continue to fascinate and perplex us, and here in the Peak District these tales are vividly recounted as if they happened yesterday. Some did because many of the obscure elements within ancient legends still recur in the haunting stories of today.

This is my sixth paranormal book and I am still finding more stories, so it is inevitable that research also uncovers some interesting additions. In Haunted Derbyshire I relayed how Labour MP Roy Hattersley had bought Church Lady House, a period property in Great Longstone, which also had a ghost. Since then I have found out that the ghost actually gave the house its unusual name. Apparently, this ghostly apparition was often seen by the children of a previous family, yet remained invisible to the adults. The children would casually announce that they had just seen ‘the church lady’ going to wash her hands in the corner of an adjacent room, presumably a former kitchen. The parents asked why the children called her ‘the church lady’ and were told that their phantom guest was always dressed in sombre black as if she were about to attend church. The name stuck and the family renamed their home Church Lady House.

While researching, I spoke to many people and witnessed some bizarre incidents. A guide at one of the Peak District Tourist Information Centres felt a draught around his feet and, looking down, realized that his shoelaces were undone. He bent down to retie them but within minutes they were undone again. I watched in fascination as he retied them yet again, using a double knot. It’s those kind of incidents that confirm that in the Peak District the supernatural is not stranded in the past, it’s all around us right here, right now.

Jill Armitage, 2009

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

Every year, 20 million people visit the Peak District and many walk the 1,600 miles of footpaths there, but this freedom to roam was only made possible by a band of intrepid walkers who in 1894 formed the Peak District and Northern Counties Footpaths Society, one of the oldest in Britain. Understandably landowners considered this a gross intrusion on their property and were adamantly against it, even going so far as to instruct their gamekeepers to shoot any trespasses. As a protest, in 1932, 500 ramblers held a mass trespass on Kinder Scout and despite five ramblers being arrested and gaoled, overall it was a peaceful protest. This united show of strength, which ended with community singing, contributed to the opening of a large area of Kinder Scout and in 1951 the opening of the first National Park in Britain.

The Peak District National Park still provides an enjoyable summer walking spot, but in less favourable weather this wild and barren place can be very inhospitable. As the wind whistles across the moors it is easy to imagine you can almost hear other, more subtle sounds, but possibly the most bizarre occurrence is the sound of singing.

On the summit of Kinder Scout.

The mass trespass that took place in 1932.

Ramblers continue to report hearing both The Red Flag and The Internationale sung by what has been described as a male-voice choir. These are not the pop songs of today that are being overheard from the player of some antisocial visitor. They might come from isolated farmsteads or domestic dwellings but as these are few and far between it’s hardly likely. What makes this so strange is that people always report hearing the same songs sung with rousing gusto, so it’s not surprising to find that this is exactly what happened on that mass trespass back in 1932. Most people now have no recollection of this event or the singing. The people who hear it have no idea that this is an action replay, a repeat performance, an echo that has been absorbed into the rocks of Kinder Scout and is still recurring after more than seventy years.

The Lost Lad and His Dog

The heather-covered moorland scenery of the Dark Peak has a strange and persistently eerie atmosphere, particularly in areas where there are poignant reminders of human catastrophe. Many people have tragically lost their lives after being caught in the open by the severe weather, which can descend suddenly and without warning.

Abraham Lowe, a thirteen-year-old shepherd boy and his faithful dog set out from their hill farm near the village of Derwent, in the Pennines, to bring the family’s flock of sheep in from the moorland tops to the sheltered farm in the valley below. Near Black Tor on Derwent Edge, he was caught by the mist that swirled around making him disorientated, and as the snow blanketed the moors, he crawled under a rock for shelter but not before he had scratched the words lost lad on the stone.

A lone walker at the beginning of the 270-mile Pennine Way.

Three months passed before a shepherd passed the spot and the remains of Abraham and his faithful dog were found huddled under the rock. Ever since, every shepherd that passes the spot has left a stone on the cairn.

At mid-winter when snow is threatening, farmers, shepherds and hikers all claimed to have caught fleeting glimpses of Abraham and his dog high on Derwent Edge. People who have seen them say they look so real, they have actually called out a greeting but have received no response. But perhaps what is most distressing is the wailing voice. Those who have heard it and searched in vain have tried to reason that it is a bird or animal in pain, but most are convinced that it is a lost child crying ‘Momma’.

An abandoned millstone on the snowy Stanage Edge.

The Bells under the Water

Another sound that is often reported in this area is the ringing of church bells. You might imagine this sound could be carried across the valley from any small Peakland church, but you’d be wrong. These bells come from the church in the village of Derwent Woodland which disappeared in 1945 when the Lady Bower reservoir was created. The spire was left and dedicated to the people, but when the water level was low the ruins of the spire would protrude above the water and people climbed it. This was considered dangerous and so the spire was blown up and now all that can be heard is ghostly bells ringing under the water.

Only the church bell tower was left standing, but the sound of ghostly bells are still heard ringing from under the water.

Derwent Church was submerged under the reservoir but when the water level was dangerously low, the ruins re-emerged.

Part of the chancel column from Derwent Church, now in the Dambusters Museum.

Hammering in the Posts

Stories of supernatural experiences don’t have to be from somewhere in the dim and distant past. In the 1990s, a young couple rented a seventeenth-century Peak District cottage at a peppercorn rent on condition that they tamed the untended garden. Firstly, they erected a fence to mark the boundary. It was nothing substantial, just stakes hammered into the ground with a few strands of wire between. Knocking the stakes into the stony ground with a small sledgehammer was the most difficult part, but they persevered. A few months later while tending the garden, they paused to listen because from somewhere came the sound of hammering. It could not have been a distant echo as it was too loud. Rather puzzled they moved around the garden and eventually realised that the noise came from their recently erected posts. There was nothing there to explain the noise, but it was the same rhythm and timing as when they had hammered the posts in place. Somehow, those earlier sounds were being replayed.

The Gabriel Hounds

Throughout the country there are the tales of packs of spectral hunting hounds that supposedly glide through the sky on wild, stormy nights searching for lost souls. In north Derbyshire and the Peak District these are known as the Rach Hounds or Gabriel Hounds. They are heard but rarely seen and their howling is said to be an omen of death or disaster. The sounds of their howls decrease as they approach and settle near a person, then once they have marked their victim, they move swiftly away and the sound begins to increase until the horrific howls are petrifying. Terrified dogs and cats apparently run for miles to get away from these spectral hounds.

The prophetic ability of these hounds was widely accepted, but there’s a romantic story in the Peak District of how this widespread belief served a useful purpose in thwarting the intentions of an unacceptable suitor. (See also Romantic Haunts of Derbyshire by this author.)

It’s understandable that we should look for rational explanations for all these sounds. The babble of the brook can suggest ghostly voices engaged in excited conversation; a veteran of that mass trespass could be re-enacting events with his ipod, despite the fact that he’d now be an octogenarian and unlikely to be capable of a repeat performance. The cry of a bird may be the soulful cry of a lost lad; the sound of bells, and the hammering could carry on the still air, the Gabriel Hounds could be geese. But people who have heard the sounds are unconvinced.

The tranquil valley from Monsal Head.

Froggat Edge.

Phantom Fighters

There are other sounds that can’t be explained away quite so easily and one of these is the sound and vibration of marching feet. This is an action replay that dates back to the year AD 80 when Julius Agricola the Roman General, having defeated the Cornavii tribe, advanced up the north-east horn of Cheshire to attack the Peak dwellers who were part of the Kingdom of the Brigantines. He ordered them to surrender, a suggestion that was met with a defiant refusal from the haughty Celts. They preferred death in battle to slavery beneath the yoke of Rome.

People have been terrified by the ghostly appearance of Roman soldiers.

The highly disciplined Roman force met the Celts who had mustered their forces on Combes Edge overlooking Glossop, but the untrained hoards were no match for the Romans. Hundreds of Britains, many of them local lead miners, horse-breeders and farmers, were massacred by the well-armed Roman army on Ludworth Moor. The dead were buried and the victorious Romans erected an altar to victory. It is said that at certain times of the year when the moonlight falls on Combes Rocks, the ghosts of ancient warriors waving their phantom axes can still be seen.

Four climbers were able to describe the long, curved shields and the curious helmets of the ghostly Roman legionnaires.

But what of those marching feet that are still heard in the area, particularly on the lonely moorland expanses? It’s probably because the Romans remained in the area for over 300 years. They appreciated the warm, curative waters of Buxton and Stoney Middleton and as the Peak District has always been rich in lead, in order to benefit from this, the Romans decided to settle here. The garrison was probably controlled initially from the headquarters of the xxth legion Valeria Victix at Chester but soon they had built forts at Melandra in Glossop and Brough-on-Noe near Bradwell which the Romans called Navio. Linking these two was a lonely road cut through some of the most inhospitable moorland expanses in the Dark Peak, the areas where the sound of those marching feet are still heard today.

In Buxton Museum is a Roman milestone found in 1862 at Silverlands, Buxton, the only known example in Derbyshire. It is inscribed, ‘TRIB POT COS II P P A NAVIONE M P XI’ which translates, ‘with tribunician power, twice consul, father of this country, from Navio II miles.’ (The name of the person with the tribunician power is obviously missing.)

Large quantities of lead were mined throughout the Peak district, but lead ore often contained large quantities of silver, so the Peak lead mines would have come under the direct supervision of the Imperial Treasury of Rome. Unfortunately Derbyshire lead contained very little silver which must have been a great disappointment to the treasury officials who quickly leased the mine to civil contractors who formed the Societas Lutudarum (Lutudarum Company). Several stamped pigs of lead have been found which carry the name of the company with the cast inscription ‘OCIORVM LVTVD BRIT. EX. ARG.’ ‘LVTVD’ can be expanded to Latudarum, and ‘EX ARG’ to Ex Argentum which means silver free, so the inscription can be translated as ‘The Latudarum Company, British silver-free lead.’

The Roman occupation of the Peak District played an important role in the development of the region and has left us with a number of cases of paranormal activity. It’s not just the sound of the tramping feet of those legionnaires that is heard. Roman soldiers have actually been seen tramping across the ridge between Glossop and Hope.

In 1932, four climbers told how they and a terrified Alsatian dog had lain on the heather near Hope Cross and watched a Roman legion pass on the lane. Their description of the long, curved shields and the curious helmets of the warriors in full uniform, carrying standards was very convincing.

Other reports seem to emanate from the same area of the moors around Hope Cross and Wooller Knoll which lie directly on the route of the Roman road between Win Hill, Kinder Scout and Doctor’s Gate. The sheer terror of the people who claim to have seen them is very genuine and according to park rangers who patrol that area, on at least two occasions, the people involved had to be taken to hospital.

Misty Shapes

We all rely upon our senses to interpret everyday happening whether they are sounds or sights, but all manner of things can be moulded by the human mind, bending reality to fit human expectation and legend.

It’s not only sounds that baffle us, the swirling mists that so regularly shade the lonely highland peaks shroud trees that assume fantastic shapes, and add to its eerie nature. When a low bank of cloud covers the moors, it is not unusual for people to report seeing a threatening shape that is quite capable of reducing the observer to blind panic. Some people would argue that it’s all in the mind of the witness – some sort of hallucination, or that the mind is simply re-running a familiar memory from inside the person’s head, a sort of mental mirage.

If evidence of a psychic phenomena is based on only one person’s account, there might be grounds for such sceptical suspicion, but when two or more people witness the same manifestation and others have reported the same thing over a period of years, this theory fails miserably.

The lonely landscape of the dark Peak where the hazy horizon seems to stretch into eternity.

However, in the case of the Roman legionnaires and many of the other phenomena reported here, these are not misty shapes. Numerous people have reported seeing the same thing, their descriptions and testimonies agree in every detail, so this can’t be dismissed as an overactive imagination or a mental mirage.

The Phantom Planes of the Peak

It was 18 May 1945, just ten days after the Second World War had ended in Europe and the men of the Royal Canadian Air Force were just counting the days to 20 June when they were due to fly back home. A big send off was planned by the local people and their British colleagues but counting the days was a boring occupation for men used to action. To keep the men occupied, cross-country flights and routine exercises were undertaken by all the crews and on this day, the six-man crew of Lancaster KB993, part of the Royal Canadian Air Force ‘Goose’ Squadron, took off from RAF Linton-on-Ouse, for what was to be their final flight.

There are numerous sightings of ghostly grey aircraft flying over the Peak.