Whilst I cook up some new spooky posts for Samhain, I thought you might like to revisit the oldie-but-goody spooky posts previously explored by Esmeralda!
How about Armboth: Cumbria’s Most Haunted : the story of a drowned bride, poltergeist-type activity and spectral lights at the house under Thirlmere. Continue reading
Driving past Thirlmere these days, you wouldn’t suspect that it was anything other than an attractive valley in the central Lake District. But this area is associated with a long list of peculiar and spooky stories going back hundreds of years.
Thirlmere from Steel Fell c. Mick Knapton
Before the valley was flooded at the end of the 19th century to create Thirlmere reservoir, it looked very different. Instead of a large lake with a steeply-sloping shore, there was a ribbon of water, comprising two skinny lakes connected at a narrow neck by an ancient wooden structure commonly referred to as the ‘Celtic bridge’. On the eastern side of the bridge stood Dalehead Hall – now a hotel – and on the western side, Armboth House. Continue reading
Cumbria isn’t alone in having a number of coffin paths, or corpse roads. These days, they’re footpaths between one village and another, sometimes marked with crosses and punctuated with low stone benches. The paths cross water at least once, intersect other paths, and are curiously unpopular amongst locals after dark. Their function until a hundred or so years ago, was simple: these are the routes taken by coffin-bearers to the nearest church with a burial ground. Some routes were just a couple of miles, others much longer, but all cover wild and largely uninhabited territory. Continue reading
Esmeralda's Cumbrian History & Folklore 