The Spaw Monster April 6, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This is a ghost account from 1839. It starts simply enough, but it has some remarkable features.
One of those singular cases commonly classed amongst the supernatural, has produced a considerable sensation amongst the inhabitant of the district of Middleton and the surrounding villages. The following are a few of the particulars. In a small valley called Spaw in the township of Acrington [Alkrington] near Middleton, are three small cottages joined together, which stand on the site of a spaw or bathing place, and from which it derives its name.
It has proved impossible to trace Spaw on a nineteenth century map: and the lands shown above are anyway all under Manchester tarmac now. Note though the cottage near the well? Just possibly this was the site of the events of 1839.
The families who last resided in [the cottages] state to our correspondent that they have been obliged to leave them in consequence of being disturbed in the dead of night by what are vulgarly called ‘boggarts’ [ghosts with fairy features], making a noise as of a person trampling up and down stairs In a heavy pair of clogs; at other times removing the chairs, fender, and other articles of furniture. Lately, one man, a collier, named Jacob Kendal, digged up in the house several yards of earth, expecting to find the bones of some murdered person, but found nothing except a fire poker and part of an old wall, supposed to be connected with the bathing place.
There are lots of references to men and women who dig up the basements of houses in an attempt to stop visitations. In one case just to the south, one doubty digger, almost brought the house down on his head.
The houses have been uninhabited, and of late hundreds of persons have been to visit the supposed haunted premises, from the neighbouring places.
Ghost riots? Here things start to get colourful: some very unusual features here.
On Tuesday evening week, a young man, a coal-miner, named Isaac Unsworth, went himself, as if in bravado, and according to his own statement, when within a few yards of the haunted place, he knelt down, and prayed, that if there was either boggart or devil to be seen, he might see it. He then proceeded to the houses, and kicked open one of the doors, when (as he states) a girl, of apparently about three or four years of age, appeared, with a buff nankeen bonnet on, but immediately disappeared. A very tall man of forbidding aspect, also made his appearance, whence he knew not.
The girl from the Shining is a little creepy, but consider now the cash incentive. Absolutely unique? drbeachombing At yahoo DOT com Temptation by the devil?
After being offered money by the man he was thrown against the wall with great violence. He then began to offer up ejaculations, when the supposed apparition disappeared he hastened home, a distance of about 100 yards, and told his neighbours the story above related; he was considerably excited and several persons endeavoured to reconcile him, but in vain. He went to bed, but could not rest. He rose about two o’clock in the morning, and again went in his shirt towards the haunted houses, and met the tall man about half way there, who offered him a handful of gold, as he stated, to go with him: but he again began to pray, when [the tall man] disappeared in a flash of light, with a report similar to what would have been produced by the ignition of a barrel of gunpowder!!!
You know it is good when a nineteenth-century editor has three exclamation marks. The disappearance of a man at a prayer makes the tall man sound like an emissary of Satan.
The young man, by some means, got home, but was for several days unable follow his employment. He still persists in saying, that it was either a boggart or the devil. Strange as it is, all the families who have resided for the last 30 or 40 years, declared they have often been terrified by similar unearthly noises. The houses are empty, and persons are going daily to view them. Singular and ridiculous as the above may appear to philosophers, even in these enlightened times, it is believed by most in the neighbourhood, that the above houses are haunted by something, not of this world; and even to the more enlightened classes it is wrapped in a deep mystery. The parties named in the above are well known in the neighbourhood as being respectable in their calling, and can testily to the truth of the above strange account.
Source: Anon, ‘The Spaw ‘Boggart’’, Bolton Chronicle (19 Jan 1839), 3
Southern Man sent in this supplementary story.
‘Since the disasters of the storm have ceased to occupy the attention of the good people in the neighbourhood of Middleton, they have found an exciting topic of conversation in a ghost story, which has been very generally circulated there, and which, we have no doubt, has just as good claims to belief as all the other stories of the same kind, that have at various times obtained currency and credence in different parts of the country. The scene of this story is an uninhabited house, not far from the Alkrington colliery, in a lone and desolate situation, and altogether as suitable a domicile as any ghost need desire to possess. It is connected with a tradition of some atrocities, ending in the murder of a child, which was said to have been buried in the cellar; and the house has, almost as a matter of course under such circumstances, had a very indifferent reputation ever since; successive occupiers having heard, or what was quite as good, imagined that they heard, during the dead of night, diverse sounds, which could not be accounted for by any natural causes. Some years ago, the house was tenanted by a man known in the neighbourhood ‘Owd Jone Whittaker,’ who, it was said, became familiarized to uncommon sounds, for the most part beginning with something like the tread of a very heavy foot, and ending like the cries of a child. ‘Owd Jone,’ however, does not appear to have been quite so faint-hearted as some of his successors; for he, and two sisters who lived with him, withstood the supposed noises for several years without flinching. It is said that Whittaker believed that the sounds indicated the concealment of money somewhere about the premises, and he had nearly brought the building down by digging in the cellars, in the vain hope of finding the hidden treasure. Since his time, the house has been divided into three tenements, with separate doors of entrance, and has been repeatedly occupied by colliers and others, who however, after a short sojourn, have always been driven away either by strange noises or by their own fears: and the last tenants, an elderly couple, were so much terrified one night, that they fled at once from the house, and several days elapsed before they durst return for the purpose of taking away their furniture. This fact, of course, confirmed the reputation of the house, and since that time, it has been wholly untenanted; very few persons choosing even to venture near the ‘boggart heawse’ as it is commonly called, except in good broad daylight. Recently, however, an individual has been found adventurous enough to beard the ghost in his own territory and the particulars of the adventure, as related by or for the adventurous wight, are the subject of the narrative and discussions which we have already alluded to as being current in the neighbourhood of Middleton. The following is the substance of them: At a beer-shop in a place called Stocks, which is very near the house in question, there lodges a man named Isaac Unsworth, a collier, who, for one of his calling, is said to be a quiet orderly man, when sober. On the first night of the present year, however, as might reasonably be anticipated, he came home a little elevated with liquor; and after sitting a short time by the fire, he started up, about ten o’clock, and declared he would go to the ‘boggart heawse.’ In vain did his landlady try to dissuade him; go he would, and go he did. After being absent about half an hour, he returned home, in a state of great apparent terror and distress; and, as soon as he became composed, related a story of which the following are the leading particulars: On coming up to the place he ‘punsed’ at the first door, when it flew open, and he went in; and, having danced a step on the floor, called out: ‘Ho! if there’s ony one here, let him come!’ Nothing, however, appeared; and he went to the second door, which, in like manner yielded to his foot, and be there in like manner, repeated his summons without effect. ‘ The third time’, however, according to a vulgar adage, ‘pays for all;’ and so according to the story, Isaac Unsworth found it. On approaching the door, he found it open, and there he had no occasion at all to repeat his summons; for, as he entered the door, a little girl, having a bonnet on, with a bow of ribbon on one side, went in before him, and stood in the middle of the floor; on which, being apparently in a humour for dancing, he danced a step round her, when she suddenly disappeared. At that moment a man entered the room, as if pursuing the girl. The new comer was of very formidable ap pearance, but Isaac Unsworth had had too many new-year’s gifts to be frightened at trifles. As in the case of Burn’s Tam o’Shanter, under circumstances not very dissimilar:
The swats sae ream’d in Isaac’s noddle,
Fair play, he cared nae deil’s a bodle;
and he therefore resolutely challenged the stranger to wrestle for half a gallon of ale! The challenge was as promptly accepted; they closed, and lsaac, though he put in all he could found himself immediately lifted from his feet, and thrown with great violence against the wall where he lay stunned and senseless for several minutes. On coming to himself he beat a speedy retreat, unmolested when a voice called after him, that he must return at two o’clock, and pay his debt. This demand greatly troubled him for being a man of honour in his way, he did not like to ‘levant,’ as the sporting phrase is; but he had very little stomach for facing his formidable antagonist a second time. Fearing, however, that worse might come of it if he failed, he determined to keep the appointment; and, accordingly, a little before two o’clock, he sallied forth on his way to the place of meeting. Whether he duly carried with him the half-gallon of ale he had lost, or whether he meant to tender ‘dry money’ (which, we should imagine, would be an affront to any ghost of respectability), the story is unfortunately silent; but it records, that, on arriving at the house, he saw his old antagonist, who now seemed of gigantic stature, and who offered him a handful of money if he would try two more falls. Isaac Unsworth, however, had had quite enough in the first encounter, and very prudently declined the offer; on which the spectre, according to all ghostly etiquette, ‘vanished in a flame of fire,’ letting the money fall upon the ground, which Isaac did not stop to pick up, but made his way back home with all the speed he could master. Such is the story which at present occupies the attention of all the gossips in the neighbourhood of Middleton, and it is repeated in a great variety of shapes, and with embellishments according to the respective tastes of the narrators. There are, indeed, some sceptical folks who express a doubt whether Isaac Unsworth was not far too drunk to know at all what happened to him on the night in question; but these doubts have very little influence on the multitude, who accept the entire story as gospel, and the ‘boggart heawse’ has recently been the principal place of public resort in the neighbourhood. Some of the more knowing ones suggest that the man seen by Isaac Unsworth, was the evil one himself, and that the recent tempest was the natural result of the disturbance which Isaac Unsworth’s visit had caused him; in which case undoubtedly, a very large number of persons have good reason to complain of folly and temerity.’
Anon, ‘A Ghost Story’, Sheffield Independent (26 Jan 1839), 6
