Spooky stories in sheffield

[Lindseyw]

OK feel free to slap me if this is a stupid / offensive question....... Moon are you really a witch ?

[DaBouncer]

She'll do more than slap you, she'll HEX you!

[Lindseyw]

Is that a 'No' then ? Uh dissapointed now I thought she was !

[Lindseyw]

Never got an answer

Any chance ? I really am curious about this.....

[WintersMist]

witch? moon maiden may not be, but i know a few if ur interested.

[kirstyhobson]

white or black magic winteramist?

[WintersMist]

White, black by mistake!

[andy1702]

OK, you asked for Sheffield ghost stories. this one is from nearby and is one of my favourites.

 

It took place in Derwent Village, now famously Drerwent Water since it was flooded when the reservoir was built. Legend has it that one of the strange customs of the village was the 'sermon for the dead'. This was read by the vicar in the village church on the stroke of midnight as new years eve became new years day.

 

The unusual thing about this particular service was that none of the living congrigation were to be present. Instead it was widely believed that the vicar gave this reading to the spirits of the locals who would pass away over the following 12 months.

 

This tradition lasted for many years in Derwent church, but was brought to an abrupt end when a new young, modern-thinking, vicar took over the post. Although he was well liked in the village, he encountered some hostility when he let it be known that the did not believe in the sermon for the dead and was not prepared to do such a thing in years to come.

 

The villagers tried to persuade hiom of his error, but he was having none of it.

 

Despite his scepticism, the young vicar somehow found himself alone in the empty church on new year's eve. He had no belief in the legends the locals told him, so you'll imagine his surprise when on the stroke of midnight ghostly figures began to appear before his very eyes!

 

His first thought was of fear, but then remembering the advice he had previously been so quick to dismiss, he began to deliver the sermon. It was while he was doing this a terrible realisation flashed across his mind. For there before him was his very own spirit!

 

It is not clear how this strange event ended. But it is said the Vicar became a changed man. From that day onwards he listened intently to what the villagers told him, became a much loved and respected part of the local community, and finally died just a few short months later.

[goldenfleece]

One of least threatening ghost experiences: I keep diaries going back to 1979 so I can look up any day over the past 20 something years here.

 

It was early evening in the Summer of 1982 and I was walking down from my friends house to the village shops,an old part of Sheffield called Fulwood. I was with a friend and as we came to the top of a passage a small narrow path leading between 2 gardens, about 500 metres long, bordered with trees, so quite dark and isolated. We were talking as normal, and when we were half way down I suddenly had the weirdest feeling that I was being watched. I turned round and looked straight up the darkening footpath which was on a slope, and right at the top I could see out of the footpath entrance to the main road, lit by streetlamps. Silloutetted against the lights was a figure of a girl, or at least I got the impression it was female, with long hair and gypsy type clothes. What was amazing was that is was fully detailed, like it was lit from the front as well as the back, which was impossible as there was no light source shining up the footpath, only down. She (the shape) was staring at me and I felt an most amaazing sense of despair, sadness and anxiety coming to me, very very intense. My friend has walked on not realaizing I had stopped and turned back, it was very quick, the girl/shape started to mobe down the footpath, but not by walking.....in fact I did not actually make out that she had legs as such, just seemed to hover almost on nothing I could really describe. She/the shape moved rapidly down the footpath towards me with all the pschic feelings intensfying so much I turned to look at my friend and call him...he turned back and so did I, but the shape had gone, there was nothing there, and no where for the shape to have gone as the footpath was enclosed on all sides by thick growing fir trees that no one could squeeze through. I backtracked up the path examining the sides and no one could have done this. At the top there was no sign of life, and the road was deserted.

 

A year later almost to the day but no quite, I had the same experience, less than 2 miles away on the site of a school. Near my old house was a junior school, with a huge playing field behind it we used for short cuts down to the village. Again, right at the bottom of the field was a narrow enclosed footpath leading down the hill to the main road, a shorter one about 200 metres long, but just as dense and dark. This time I was on my own and walking down to the village to buy some tins of beer, and I felt the same weierd presence, turned back, and looking up the path into the field I saw the same figure, this time a brilliant glowing white female figure standing and kind of flowing at the same time. She looked straight at me, I must have been about 50 metres away at this point, closer than before, and she smiled the most amazing smile I have ever seen, or experienced ever since. With that smile came the most incredible burst of psyschic energy, like joy and despair all mixed up. She knew I could see her, and she knew I had seen her a year previous. Then, she just went, not vanished in the sense of what you might think...just was not there....but was, only differently.

 

Ihad been puzzled the year before but not done any research. This time I decided to find out who she was and where she had come from. Following this "haunting" to be put it like that, I

decided to find out who this glowing girl was. The house I lived in was not old, it was a big 1970's detachedfamily house I

was always convinced there was something odd about the house as had many pyschic experiences where I lived (and

decided that there might be a link between this and the "haunting".

Our road itself was built in 1975, and I went

to town to look into the local archives in the library. I found out firstly that the roadwe lived in was built

on derelict land which ad been abandoned since the 2nd world war. Ourhouse was in

fact built on the site of a big mansion a huge

estate which was bombed in 1942 and partially destroyed, killing the occupants of the house. It remained a ruin until 1950's when There was little other information, but it appeared that the mansion was built in 1910 for a Colonel from the first world war, a military man who had money to finance his own

country estate. I was sure I was on to something of great local interest and contacted the builders, Gleeson and Company, who built our road and all the houses in 1975. They sent me

photographs of surveys from 1975 before construction showing the site before they moved in and bought it up with the remains of a bombed mansion still standing in the trees. The original

driveway to the mansion is now our road, and our garden is in fact part of the 1910 "shrubbery" and is built over what used to be the wine cellars of the oldh ouse. After I had

done tons of research in March 1983 it was, or as much as I could do at the time,things went very very weird indeed. One night shortly after my parents were out for thenight and I was at

home alone with the dog and my grandma. The dog, a huge afghan hound used to sleep on the bottom of my bed

at night. This evening she sytarted to act strange, kept barking and would not sleep on my bed, and would not come into the room at all. I was pretty disturbed by this and felt that

something was not right, and the house had a really weird feel and atmosphere. My grandmother loved horror films and we were watching an old Hammer horrorm ovie

until about half midnight, and after I had gone to bed, and left the door open for the dog to come in, I lay awake for some time. There was something very very oddindeed

about to happen....Anyway, this is deadful. I awoke about 3 am feeling as if someone was inthe room. I

opened my eyes looked towards my bedroom door, it was

open, and the dog was standing at the door with its nose poking through, sniffing.She looked at me and then whimpered and backed out.This WAS a first and I was concerned. I thought about getting up and turning on the lights, but aside

from that, everything seemed calm and norma, except I could feel a certain uneasiness in the air. The curtains were half open as usual, with the moon in view over the trees at the bottom of the road. I went to sleep...

 

I awoke with a jolt about 10 minutes later I think it was, and opened my eyes. this is horrible. There was a huge black shape leaning over me, like a massive cloaked figure

with no face, towering, black and emanating evil. I actually screamed and tried to cover my head with the blanket, but I was frozen....literally I was gripped insome vice like

force and was unable to move...totally frozen. This seemed to go on for ages, and all i could see was the room around me fading into darkness, until I could not see the black

shape towering over me, but could just feel it. The most oppressive, evil, horrible, feelings were being pumped into me....like just the anti everything good feelings.....I felt

it trying to enter me spiritually and even my spirit was being pushed out of my body. For one second I seemed to leave me body and was floating free in blackness, and I could

see my body below on the bed with the black shape sinking into me. it was horrible.

 

Quite then I don't know for sure, as it all became very blurred, but I felt something take my hand and a feeling of being safe, or being somehow, helped. To the left of me was a

very blurred female form of a young girl in gpysy clothing, smiling at me....it was the ghost from the footpath in 1982 and from the field in 1983 just a few dayse arlier, she pulled me towards her and then it just goes black and I am suddenly awake in my bed.

 

Yes you may think...a dream? Well I was covered in sweat and there were red marks all down my arm, like bite marks or something. The dog was on the top of the stairs

barking her head off and my grandma comes in and wants to know what all the noise is

about. I sink back into bed and just say something like the dog barked,etc, and she goes back to bed. I still have red marks up one arm, the evil presence has gone, and so has all feeling of evil, and now the room seems warm and happy again.

Brandy comes in and jumps on the bed and settles down. The nightmare (which wasn't) isover.......

[goldenfleece]

So intense was this experience I will never forget it. It was NOT A DREAM.Something eveil from the landscape around the house had been awakened and focusedits negative energies on me, even tried to possess me. All I had been doingwas tracing

the history of the house, the former mansion and something knew this and was trying to stop me. And then the girl had

come and somehow bought peace back again......

 

I sat alone in my room the next night with 2 candles trying to contact this ghost, the girl from the field, the footpath and now from my room. I felt that she was somewhere out

there waiting for me, and somehow was doing me good. And yet there wass omething evil connected with her that she was trying to get away from, connected with our house

and the site it was built over.

 

A few days later my parents went away on business. Dad was moving to a new office in

manchester, 40 miles away, and they were looking for a new house. I was unsure of my plans as I wanted to stay in Sheffield with my friends, and importantly, my new girlfriend Jo. In a very ofdd way I felt that the solution to all this was connected with the house, , and something in its history and the apparitions I had

experienced would in some way I don't understand, be beneficial to me. Back to the archives Iwent, and found plans of the

house from 1910 showing the layout of the floors, and most importantly,the cellars. By overlaying a map of the new road we could see that the houses built in 1975 followed the old driveway of the house, and curved round to the lower garden area

of the original house. The cellars of the house seemed to stretch under the garden, which someone had mentioned previously at the builders I contacted. . Right under our house and garden was one of these vaulted cellars, now full of concrete,but one of the

tops of the vaulted archways remains in the garden next door to us, where in the corner of their garden by part of the old stone enclosure wall I mentioned, is the

top 4 inches of a vaulted arch, which the builders left to form a feature to build a rockery around. I was impressed....

 

 

But first, and briefly as I am rabbiting away, I discovered who the girl ghost was in 1985, when I went to a séance in manchester in a student house, and we managed,afyter contacting a lot of idiots (they love to play games with you), a personwho identified

herself to me as my Guardian Spirit, and who called herself Tammy. I was with my girlfriend at the time, Jill, and the feeling was so intense I actually cried with joy. There was no visual experience but I knew if was the glowing girl from the field

in Sheffield, etc, and that she was watching over me and taking care of me. It WAS her who came to me in the night when I was being attacked by this evil force from the site

of the old houe, and it WAS her who saved me from certain possession and probabledeath. She

told us she had saved my life 4 times, and it all was accurate. Once in

1984 I was so near to be ing crushed by a bus it was a million to one I survived. Ithappened one night

when i was drunjk out of head and walking throiugh Sheffield to get home,two buses

came down the high street, both in oppiste directions: I was standing in the middle of the road and walking then straight into the path of one of the buses. I remember being

grabbed and pulled off the road, but there was no one there.

The information I had about Tammy was vague, she did not answer ,manyquestions

about herself, but gave only the clues she was from my "youngest

childhood". She seemed unrelated in fact to the site of the house, so I was coinfused by this. I knew she as my guardian spirit, but who as she, or rather where had she come

from?

 

The answer this this came in 1986, With the information I had from the girl who claimed to be my guardian spirit, I went

back home and thought about it. from my childhood was the only clue. I went through all

the family photo albums, the films, everything, and there was not one girl I knew who was called Tammy. my parents did not know the name, so I was stumped. Whowas

she!!!

 

About a year later in 1986 I was met with yet another vision of her, thistime back in

Sheffield. I was out walking, and I saw her again in thetrees. There is a group or cluster of old fir trees near the top of the road and sheappeared briefly with

the words in my head " I am always by your side". I was overcome with agreat feeling

of pure joy again a,d knew I had to find her.My childhood was based not in Sheffield but in a small town on the kent coast called Whitstable. Its a small London commuter town, 50 miles from london and with a beach and coastal community. I lived there until I was 12. On impulse, having

not been back there since I left, I went down to stay with my Aunt, who lived in canterbury, just 4 miles South of Whitstable. I went baqck to see my old road and home and wondered

around, trying to figure out who this girl was from my childhood, my family not having a clue as

to whom it might be. I went to the local Church and Council offices andasked to view

the register of births and deaths. I was allowed to do this although theywere very

curious as to what I wanted. The lady in charge asked me if I needed help as I could not make head or tail of the records at all. I said I was trying to find ayoung or youngish girl

called Tammy who may have died in the area when I was younger, say around the early 1970's or that period. She asked for a 2nd name, I did not have one of course. o she got

out annual records for a 5 year period and left me to persue through the deaths each year. I found nothing that day, but next day i went back and tried a few years previous,

literally when I was a baby, and found the entry for a girl killed on a bicycle by a car just near her home aged 7. Only her initial was entered as her first name, the letter T. Her home was Sandpiper Avenue, literally 200 years from my road. Quite excitedabout this

I checked out the local church graveyard and found her grave, and yes, herfirst name

was Tammy.

 

Curious, I was aware that her spirit was close to me and she kinda spoketo me in my

head, not in words but in a feeling, and I could see her in life on a redbicycle, and me beside her, aged about 5. I went to the house and knocked on the door. A woman

answered and not knowing quite how to put this, I asked her had she livedat the house a long time? Surprised, she said about 15 years, and why did I want toknow. I

explained about the girl tammy and she did not know what i was talking about, but her neighbour, who was in her front garden, overheard me. She had lived her 30 years and

said the family who had lived there did have a daughter called Tammy and that she had been knocked down by a car at the end of the street. I asked the woman did she used to watch her play on her bike, a red bike, and she saidw hy yes

she did have a small red bike, and liked to play by herself. I thanked them for their help and went back to canterbury, because I knew that i had found her and itwas OK.

 

I do remember now, once or twice when out with my sister walking with my Grandma, I had played once or twice with a girl on a red bike. I never knew her name,she was just

"the girl on the red bike" at the top of the road. Thats why no one knew her name in my family, but my parents DID recall when I spoke to them later someone had been run

over, but they did not know the girl or the parents as such.