Th’ Pob Hole, Springhead
A pit in a farmer’s field at Springhead called ‘Th’ Pob Hole’ was thought to be a dark place where a local witch named Nan o’ Pob’s committed suicide. Her ghost is said to...
Country and County: Oldham
Stang Riding (Stang-riding)
According to ‘Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports’ (1873) edited by John Harland & T. T. Wilkinson, ‘THE practice of what is locally termed “stang riding” was practised in Lancashire some forty years’ ago. When...
Whitfield Hall, Oldham
James Butterworth gave the following account in 1826 of a local story concerning a spectral tail. It was published in his History and Description of the Parochial Chapelry of Oldham in the County of...
Chamber Hall Boggart, Oldham
Demolished in the early 20th century, Chamber Hall, according to tradition, from the 1600’s was associated with a boggart. The following newspaper article by W.A.W, entitled ‘Chamber Hall, It’s Place In Oldham History, Yeoman,...
The Radclyffe Arms
There is a story that an apparition of a man has been seen sitting at the bar with a pint of beer. It has been suggested that it could be the ghost a man who killed himself in the cellar. This haunting is mentioned on several websites but I am unsure of its origin.
Saddleworth Rushcart
Rushbearing dates back to the middle ages and is a festival where rushes were collected to be strewn out over the floors of churches, back when the floors were just earthen. The tradition died off when church floors started to be flagged by the 19th century, though in some villages and towns it was revived as a folk custom.
Thurston Clough Romans
Thurston Clough is a hamlet near Scouthead, roughly 1.5 miles from the village of Dobcross, Saddleworth and Janette Quinlan in Mystical Oldham (2010) refers to a letter received by the Oldham Evening Chronicle in 1973 concerning Roman soldiers haunting Thurston Clough.
La Pergola Hotel, Saddleworth
According to Haunted Sites of Oldham by Janette Quinland and Shaun McGrath the 18th century La Pergola Hotel (now the Clough Manor Hotel) was haunted by the veiled apparition of a woman wearing a Victorian crinoline style dress.
The Bill o’ Jacks Murders
On April 2nd 1832 a landlord and his gamekeeper son were violently murdered at a remote pub on the edge of the bleak moorland above Greenfield near Saddleworth. Reported at the time as “one of the most diabolical murders ever committed” (1), the murders were never solved and have become a fascinating, if dark, part of the local lore of Saddleworth.
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