A brief but fascinating tale of a haunting in St Michael’s makes our 29th Halloween tale of the month, all of them inspired by local folklore.
An investigation of the national British History archives revealed a peculiar haunting in the village of St Michael’s, Preston. There’s scant information to be found about this haunting, but it was just too interesting not to share with you.
Sir Ralph Longworth was born in 1625 and owned a long-since vanished manor house known variously as Tarnicar Hall, Turnover Hall, St Michael’s Hall or more simply as the ‘Old Hall’. Today, the only evidence that the Hall existed is in the name of the nearby Turnover Hall Farm Caravan Park.
The former commander was reluctant to give up his house – he would bang and crash around the building.
Ralph, who was 39 in 1664, was an officer in the trained band of the Lancashire militia, being appointed captain in 1672 and major on 17th June 1689. He died in his sixties and was buried in January 1694. But Ralph’s story did not end there…
The major was said to have haunted the old hall after his death. Dressed in his officer’s uniform, the former commander was reluctant to give up his house – he would bang and crash around the building and materialise outside the front door. Eventually it was decided to exorcise noisy old Ralph. To lay his ghost the combined power of priest and parson was brought into operation. The ghost was “laid” under the bridge near the hall, with the injunction that it had to remain quiet “so long as the water flowed down the hills and the ivy remained green”.
Read our previous Hallowe’en Tales
Day 1 – The Curse of Carleton Crematorium.
Day 2 – The Witch Ducking Stools of Poulton-Le-Fylde.
Day 3 – The Ghost-Seer of Weeton.
Day 4 – Smuggling, Drowned Nuns and Fallen Acrobats at Raikes Hall
Day 5 – The Hauntings at the Old Coach House
Day 6 – Old Scrat
Day 7 – A Goblin Funeral at Extwistle Hall
Day 8 – The Ghost of Lady Macbeth
Day 9 – The Mermaid & The Sea Serpent of Marton Mere
Day 10 – The Banshee of Poulton
Day 11 – The Possession of the Lancashire Seven
Day 12 – Lady Fleetwood of old Ross Hall
Day 13 – Tales of Boggart House Farm
Day 14 – Miss Bamber of Marton and her Charms
Day 15 – A Severed Head at Mowbreck Hall
Day 16 – Burnley’s Satanic Pigs and the Clogging of Owd Nick
Day 17 – Three Pilling Boggarts
Day 18 – Hall i’ th’Wood
Day 19 – The Skull House, Appley Bridge
Day 20 – The Boggart of Clegg Hall
Day 21 – The Haunted Hall on the Hill
Day 22 – The Wraiths of Wycoller
Day 23 – The Shipwrecks and Hauntings of Bispham Village
Day 24 – All Hallows Church and the Zodiac Portal
Day 25 – The Drowned Villages of the Fylde Coast
Day 26 – The Spirits of Skippool Creek
Day 27 – Whittingham Asylum for Pauper Lunatics
Day 28 – The White Lady of Old Whitegate Lane
Take a look at Zowie Swan’s debut novel, Chingle Hall here.
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