BRIDES, BRIDGES AND SPACEMEN
ROB GANDY returns with more real-life experiences from Cheshire and Staffordshire, including a bevy of ghostly brides falling from bridges, a disintegrating jogger and a spaceman on a high-tech motorcycle who may have been a ghost from the future…
ROB GANDY returns with more real-life stories, including ghostly brides falling from bridges and a spaceman on a hightech motorcycle who may have been a ghost from the future…
In my article Strange Stories from Southport (FT370:42-45) I highlighted how, following my Old Man of Halsall Moss (FT328:32-39) presentation in Birkdale, several people told me of their own weird experiences, which I included in said article. However, one tale was excluded because it was not local to West Lancashire and required more research because it seemed so fantastic. This was the second experience described to me by Miss W, who also gave the details of Case J (the Drunken Farmer). I am now at a point where I cannot take things any further, and so I set out her story below, together with other ‘real-life’ experiences collected during the course of my investigations in the Cheshire-Staffordshire borders.
THE BRIDE ON THE BRIDGE
Miss W of Formby, Merseyside, was in a car being driven back from Alton Towers in North Staffordshire after a day visiting the amusement park. There were two cars, a boy and a girl in each, with Miss W being the passenger in the front car. It was late one summer evening – Miss W recalls that it was getting on for 9pm on either 13 or 14 August in (probably) 2008. Her friend Chris had decided to drive on the back roads to avoid major road works. The weather was clear, although there may have been some drizzle in the air.
They had been travelling for 20 to 30 minutes and were driving up a narrow twoway road when they approached a bridge. The bridge had waist-high brick walls on either side, and was little more than a single-car’s width over a canal or small river. They then saw a woman in a wedding dress standing on the right-hand side of the bridge; just as they were driving carefully past her, she fell over the side of the bridge. Miss W said to Chris that he must have hit her, but Chris insisted that he had not. They stopped and got out and looked over the bridge, down what appeared to be a 12-15ft (3.6-4.6m) drop. There was nothing to see – no sign of the woman or anything else.
They called out but got no response.
Their friends in the other car had been right behind them. However, because they were travelling in an unfamiliar area, they had been concentrating on the road. Given the speed with which events unfolded, they both knew that they had seen something, but were uncertain as to exactly what. They
“Then they saw a lady in a wedding dress standing on the bridge”
stopped the car and joined Miss W and Chris who described what had happened. They all tried to call for the police and an ambulance on their mobiles, only to find that there was no signal. They decided that Miss W and Chris should drive on to find somewhere where they could find a telephone, or get a signal, while the friends stayed by the bridge to wait and see if they could find the woman. After about three minutes Miss W and Chris came across a rather isolated, moderately-sized public house – Miss W thinks that it could have accommodated about 50 people. The pub car park was not very large and most cars were parked on the road. Beyond the pub were a number of houses. Miss W and Chris stopped and entered.
They asked for a telephone and described what had happened. They were greeted by a deathly silence. The landlady then explained that what they had seen was the ghost of a woman called ‘Sarah’ who had fallen off the bridge and drowned on her wedding day 25 years previously. She had been wearing her wedding dress. The phantom had been witnessed every year on the anniversary. Miss W and Chris were naturally shocked. In the circumstances, accepting what they had been told, they decided not to call the police or ambulance. They returned to their friends before setting off on the remainder of their journey to Merseyside.
This is a very intriguing story, particularly as many aspects potentially sound folkloric: an anniversary ghost, appearing every year for 25 years; the ghost is that of a bride; and, a remote pub where everyone is familiar with the ghost. There are some parallels with the famous Blue Bell Hill ghost, in Kent, where a bride-to-be was killed in a car crash on the eve of her wedding day (see FT73:28, 104:36-40). I have pressed Miss W about the various details, and she is wholly sincere about her experience. Indeed, during our various correspondences, she met her friend Lucy from the second car, who corroborated the story. Therefore, it appears to be a genuine, first-hand multiwitness experience. Unfortunately, Miss W cannot remember sufficient details to enable identification of the bridge and pub. She recalls there were no traffic lights on the bridge and no other bridges, such as over a railway, were nearby.
I pursued several different approaches in my follow-up investigation. I contacted FT’s Alan Murdie to ask if the Ghost Club 1 had anything of relevance in its records. Alan was his usual helpful self, but unfortunately nothing was found. I also liaised with fellow Weird Weekend North presenter Mike Walters, who lives in the Stoke-onTrent area [FT355:24]. Mike has a good knowledge of all strange phenomena in the area and excellent contacts. He put the word out throughout his network, seeking related information, but also drew a blank. Nevertheless, he provided details of some other stories below.
I tried identifying potential locations on Google Maps and Street View, but failed to identify any bridges where the locations and descriptions fitted the details provided; it is unlikely I covered all possibilities. I then
A person-shaped white mist crossed the road and went through the gate
used my tried-and-tested method of asking local newspapers to include a short article outlining the experience in question and inviting readers to get in touch with me if they had related information to offer. 2 This exercise yielded one experience relating to a ghostly bride (see below). It should be noted that no newspaper could trace an article from its back-issue records from the early 1980s (where they existed) reporting on a bride called ‘Sarah’ who drowned by falling off a bridge on her wedding day. I feel certain such an occurrence would have definitely appeared in the local press, if not the national papers.
THE BRIDE ON THE HEATH
I only received one response to my call for information through local newspapers. This was from Mr G, who is now retired and was born and bred in the Sandbach area of Cheshire. He remembers the story that his grandmother told him in the 1940s about a local church that is haunted by the ghost of a bride. The story goes that there is a white apparition that has been seen crossing the road from the opposite side to the church, through the lychgate and into the churchyard. This is supposed to be the ghost of a bride who died just before her wedding day and was buried in her wedding dress in the churchyard.
Mr G says that the story is well known locally. He thinks his grandmother was born in the 1880s, and told the story as if it were both well-known and had been around for a long time, which suggests that it could possibly pre-date World War I. The church is St John the Evangelist Church at Sandbach Heath, which is sometimes referred to simply as ‘The Heath’. The building was designed by George Gilbert Scott, and is situated in a comparatively isolated position on Church Lane, which runs south off the Congleton Road (A534), just east of junction 17 of the M6. A little way to the north of the church, before the A534, there is a valley with a small bridge over a brook that is a tributary of the River Wheelock.
Mr G has never seen the apparition himself, but recalls that during the 1980s he was attending an educational course as part of his work on the railways when he was approached by a colleague (he can only remember the man’s nickname of ‘Garth’) who told him a story. Garth and his wife had been walking in the area around The Heath with a group of friends the previous weekend. It was dusk as they walked up the lane on which St John the Evangelist Church stands; the weather was dry. Garth and his wife had dropped back some distance from the main group, and their friends had all gone past the church entrance. It was at this point that the two of them saw a person-shaped white mist cross the road in front of them and go through the lychgate. Terrified, they quickly caught up with the main group. Garth had sought Mr G’s confirmation about the reputed haunting because of his knowledge of the local area. Neither Garth nor his wife knew of it before the event took place and so there can be no question of prior suggestion.
I contacted St John the Evangelist Church and spoke to the current warden, who was born locally and has lived in the area all his life, some 60 years. He was aware of the story of a ghost in a white gown but neither he nor anyone else that he knows has ever actually seen anything; and he has spent a great deal of time over the years, in the day and at night, undertaking duties in the church and churchyard. He considers it simply an old tale passed down over time. I asked whether there might be a woman who had been buried in her wedding dress, but he was not aware of any evidence that such an event had occurred; the only option would be to go through the Diocese records in Chester. I did not feel that I could justifiably ask anyone to do this, particularly as any records were unlikely to note the apparel of the deceased, who of course would have arrived at the church in a closed coffin. I therefore thanked the warden for his time and advice, and drew a line under this avenue of research.
It will have been noted that there is a bridge near the church, and one inevitable question is whether this might be the one where Miss W and her friends had their own experience years later. I strongly believe that this is not the case: the location is undoubtedly more than 20 to 30 minutes from Alton Towers; the bridge is over a brook which is not 12ft (3.6m) below; the road goes down to, rather than up to, the bridge; and while the Chimney House Hotel is nearby, it in no way fits Miss W’s description of the public house. The fact that the location is between a quarter and a half mile from Junction 17 of the M6 motorway is also significant: the direction of the roads and lanes mean this is not a route that Miss W and her friends would have been likely to travel; the proximity of the motorway makes it unlikely there was a mobile phone black spot; and Miss W does not recall a motorway being nearby. Therefore, although Mr G’s story is fascinating in itself, it does not refer to the same phenomenon and location as Miss W’s experience.
THE CONFETTI JOGGER
Around 6.30am one day in early November 2017, Alison Graham, aged 44, of Whitehill in Staffordshire, was travelling from Thorncliffe towards the Mermaid Inn on the Staffordshire Moorlands. There was fog, so thick she could only see a few yards ahead. Therefore she drove cautiously at less than 20mph (32kmh). As she passed the lay-by before the Mermaid, a jogger suddenly came out of nowhere, on the same side of the road, running away from her. She described him as “very tall, slim and wearing dark clothes with reflective material to the bottom of his top and on the back of his running shoes.” She hit the brakes hard and gripped the steering wheel tightly, as the car inevitably slid towards him. Then, on the point of impact, “He disintegrated. Like confetti.” It was as if he had turned into small pieces of paper right before her eyes. But then he was gone, leaving Alison “shocked, amazed and terrified all in equal quantities”. She stopped the car and checked the road behind her, but found nothing other than the thick fog. 3
Dawn Myatt told of a similar experience driving alone on the M6 one night from Stafford towards Stoke-on-Trent. It was around 9.30pm and still light, with little traffic. Suddenly she saw a man in the middle of the motorway, wearing a denim jacket, jeans and check shirt, with collarlength wavy dark blonde hair, like someone from the early 1970s. He started to walk just before she hit him but she felt nothing. She pulled over but there was no one there. Nita Reynolds added that “there is a stretch of the M6 that’s well known for hauntings” and described this as being around Junction 17. 4
SPACEMAN ON A MOTORBIKE
It was during my discussions with Mike Walters that he alerted me to a motorbike
story told to him by a friend, also called Mike. Unfortunately, it was too late for inclusion in my Uneasy Riders article about road ghosts on motorbikes (FT358:42-47).
One day in the 1950s or 1960s Mike’s father was roughly halfway up the very steep part of Keele Road (known locally as Keele Bank), just outside Newcastleunder-Lyme in Staffordshire. It was mid to late evening and dark, that stretch of the road being unlit. His father was on foot and doing some poaching, and was therefore trying to be as discreet as possible. Just then he heard a strange mechanical roaring sound coming from down the hill, from the Newcastle direction, and saw a motorbike approaching him, much quicker than he would have expected. He was struck by the number of lights, which were much brighter than typical motorcycle lights of that time. Mike’s father was scared but continued to stare at what he described as a ‘Spaceman’ on a very strange, streamlined motorbike; indeed, he wasn’t 100 per cent sure it was a motorbike until it went past. He described the rider as wearing a sort of one-piece suit and a massive streamlined helmet with a mirrored visor, which he later said resembled a space helmet. The ‘Spaceman’ glanced in his direction but did not stop; the motorbike just roared past on its way up the bank. Once it was out of sight, Mike’s father decided it was time to return home. He later told Mike what he had seen, and the story became well known in the family.
Many years later, probably around the Millennium, Mike was riding up Keele Bank on his modern motorbike when he found himself approaching the spot where his father told him he’d seen the ‘Spaceman’. As he passed the spot he got an uncontrollable urge to look to the side of the road, as if halfexpecting to see his father, who had long since passed away. He was disappointed, but unsurprised, to see the roadside was empty. However, he then realised that it was
mid to late evening and he was dressed in an outfit which was exactly the same as his father had described all those years before. In addition, his motorbike was a big, powerful, modern machine, with bright lights and a distinct roaring sound. As he looked down at his one-piece bike leathers he remembered he was also wearing a mirrored visor helmet. A powerful feeling swept over him that evening, one that he could not shake. He said: “What if what my father saw on that night all those years ago was me as I am now?” To this day Mike believes that this might have been the case: somehow, in the 1950s or 1960s, his father had seen his own middle-aged son go past him on his motorbike – perhaps a ghost from the future…
EMILY
In March 2019 I gave a presentation about road ghosts to Mike Walter’s Newcastle-under-Lyme-based Mysteries group. Members of the group had made great effort to identify where Miss W’s experience had taken place, both by visiting potential locations north of Stokeon-Trent and checking Google-based sources. Frustratingly they had drawn a complete blank. The following month I gave a presentation at Weird Weekend North 2019 (FT381:22-23) which included the above cases. Much to my surprise I was approached by people from the audience who said that they knew someone who had also seen a ‘ghost bride’ in Staffordshire, but to the south of Stoke-on-Trent – an area not closely investigated by the Mysteries group. They agreed to put this person in touch with me. I hoped that this might prove a second and confirmatory case of the same phantom, which would help specify the location involved and thereby lead to further enquiries.
I was eventually contacted by Karen (pseudonym) who told me that she was
not the one who’d had the experience in question; that had been her friend Steve (pseudonym), who described the incident as follows:
“It was the afternoon of Sunday 29 July 2012 and I had been to the Great Haywood village shop. I was walking through the woods with my dog Tilly; we had passed St Stephen’s church and were heading towards the canal where the narrow boats are moored. As we passed underneath the railway bridge
– just before the iron bridge that goes over the Trent and Mersey canal – I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned around to see who it was, thinking it was someone else out walking their dog, but no one was there. Indeed, there was no one around at all. Nevertheless, it felt like someone was there in front of me, and that l was being watched. I have had many experiences like this before, where l sensed a presence. So, using my mobile phone, I decided to take a photograph of the area by the wall of the railway bridge where l sensed someone to be. It was only when I returned home and looked at the photo that l was shocked to clearly see the image of a young woman in front of the wall. She was looking directly at me, and I considered that she looked startled, even though the image was quite transparent. She appeared to be wearing a veil around her head and carrying a small posy of flowers. (I checked and where a ‘posy’ is situated on the image there was nothing in the actual wall that could have been mistaken for one). I thought she looked around 23 years old, although she could be younger. I named her ‘Emily’ as that is the name that came to me when l saw her.
I showed the photo to my friend Karen, who lives locally, hoping that she might shed some light on who this woman might be. She speculated there could be a link to a young woman who was the victim of a fatal road traffic accident that happened in Great Haywood at the Mill Pond in 1905, where a car had come off the road into the pond.
Interestingly, Tilly did not react at the time of the incident, as some dogs can do where there is something ‘paranormal’ going on. By contrast, my older dog Bess, when she was alive, often went ‘nuts’ whenever we walked by the railway bridge and in the woods close by. Once, she just refused to pass by a particular spot in the woods and barked and growled at something that l couldn’t see; I ended up having to climb the embankment and walk across the top to the other side!
Karen later shared Steve’s photo with a local Facebook group. One response was from an elderly gentleman who has lived in the village all his life. He said that he recognised this young woman and had often seen her crossing over the nearby Essex Bridge towards Shugborough Hall in the evenings when he was out walking his dog. She had passed him and then simply vanished.
The reference to the road traffic accident relates to Mrs Challenor, the wife of the Town Clerk of Hanley, and her niece, who were being driven across the bridge at Great Haywood Mill when their car plunged into the mill pond. The chauffeur and Mrs Challenor survived, but Mrs Challenor’s niece could not be found. The pond was dragged and divers from the Manchester Ship Canal were brought in,
but without success. Eventually the mill pond was pumped dry, but the body was only recovered downstream three weeks later. After the accident the road was straightened and a new bridge was built. 5
What to make of all this? Well, it is clear that the descriptions of the place, the ‘bride’ and the experience are quite different to those of Miss W and her Formby friends. Steve sensed someone under a bridge whereas the ‘bride’ seen by Miss W was on top of one; one bridge relates to a railway and the other involves a watercourse; one location is close by a large village while the other is out in the countryside; and Great Haywood, being six miles east of Stafford and 18 miles south of Stoke-on-Trent, would represent a not impossible but highly unlikely route for the Formby party to have taken travelling home from Alton Towers, even if they were a bit lost. Inevitably some will question Steve’s photograph. I am no expert in photography and will accept that the image looks a bit like a two-dimensional superimposition of one photograph on to another. But, as most critics will be sceptics who do not believe in ghosts, the question must be asked: what exactly does a photograph of a genuine ghost look like if ghosts don’t exist anyway? I adopt the fortean stance of keeping an open mind and simply present the evidence for others to debate.
However, I must stress that I believe in both Steve’s and Karen’s sincerity; neither has sought publicity or gain from the photograph, and I only stumbled across it through a chain of events and contacts. The fact that the elderly gentleman (a) recognised the woman from the photograph, and (b) indicated that he had regularly seen her on Essex Bridge simply adds grist to the
mill. Of course, even if it is believed that the image is that of a ghost there can be no certainty as to the person involved. Maybe it is Mrs Challenor’s niece (given the location is about 650 yards downstream from the mill pond), or a servant from Shugborough Hall, or even a jilted bride. Sadly we will never know – but ‘Emily’ is a nice name for her, whoever or whatever she is.
CONCLUSIONS
I don’t think that we will ever get to the bottom of what happened to Miss W and her friends that evening unless we can identify the specific location. It could be that they mistook a mist (or similar) for being a bride on the bridge, given that mists can form around watercourses in certain conditions. What may appear solid from a distance can then become more dispersed as you approach, potentially leading to the conclusion that ‘it’ has disappeared. Also they were travelling in a general westerly direction at or around sunset, and so it could be that light from the setting sun played tricks with whatever was near to the bridge, such as trees or bushes, which might then have combined with any mist that was present. The friends then rationalised the disappearance of the optical phenomena as being the bride falling over the side.
But what of the reaction and response from the people in the pub? I believe that there are three possibilities: they were telling the truth (but then why wasn’t the story of ‘Sarah’s’ demise reported in the press?); they were familiar with a local (atmospheric/weather) phenomenon relating to the bridge which had developed into a ghost story that they liked to tell to passing travellers; or they were simply ‘having a laugh’. The landlady would not have had to ask the League of Gentlemen’s question “Are you local?” when two panicking Merseyside youngsters arrived with their outlandish tale. Why not humour them with a story made up on the spot? None of the regulars, enjoying the fun, would contradict her. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, deliberately adopting a sceptical stance, and building hypothesis upon hypothesis upon hypothesis in a fortean house of cards. All that I can say is that Miss W and her friends sincerely believed they had their experience, which is reinforced by their subsequent actions in seeking help.
The existence of the photograph of ‘Emily’ and the claim that this spirit, or whatever it might be, has been seen regularly on Essex Bridge over many years makes the Great Haywood case particularly intriguing. Other photographs have been taken close to where the event took place with orbs being spotted; although orbs are usually dismissed as photographic artefacts. What can definitely be stated is that this is a completely different case to that witnessed by Miss W and her friends. Which begs the question of whether there is some connection between ‘brides’ and bridges, particularly in Cheshire and Staffordshire. We will never know the answer, but these ‘brides’ can be added to the panoply of White ladies and haunted bridges described by Alan Murdie (FT358:18-20).
These first- and second-hand stories are good examples of forteana from this part of England, and illustrate how the pursuit of one investigation can generate other interesting tales, even if the investigation itself proves less than fruitful. Of course, there may be folkloric elements in such tales, which is why it is so important to get as near to the source(s) as possible. But I am left with the comforting thought that serendipity can be a key factor in fortean research.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Alan Murdie and Mike Walters for their time, efforts and advice.
NOTES
1 www.ghostclub.org.uk/
2 I would like to thank the Cheadle Post & Times, the Congleton Chronicle, the Leek Post & Times, the Stoke Sentinel, and the Uttoxeter Post & Times, for doing this.
3 http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/ local-news/supernatural-staffordshire-i-ranover-851860
4 Ibid.
5 www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/details.as px?ResourceID=597&ExhibitionID=599&Searc hType=2&ThemeID=26#top
✒ ROB GANDY is a visiting professor at the Liverpool Business School, John Moores University. A regular contributor to FT, he has written on football curses, hoaxes, statistics and phantom hitchhikers.