The Paranormal Database

Town library, Burnley.

Piano Man

Location: Burnley - Town library
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A piano in a lecture theatre here was seen to play itself and has been also heard several times since.

Towneley Hall, Burnley.

Sir John Towneley

Location: Burnley - Towneley Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former owner of the building, Towneley is reluctant to vacate his former property. He makes his presence known by playing with the lights and creating unrecognisable sounds.

Ticking

Location: Burnley - Unnamed house along Crowther Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Once belonging to a watchmaker who hanged himself, local legends state that you can hear strange ticking as you pass the house late at night.

Miner

Location: Burnley - Victoria Hospital
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Having died in the hospital after a mining accident seriously injured many of the pit workers from a nearby colliery, this solitary figure is occasionally reported by staff working the night shift.

Mirror Monk

Location: Burscough - Burscough Abbey
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Occasionally this monk can be seen reflected in any mirror used on the site.

Pipe Smoking Man

Location: Burscough - Burscough airfield
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1950s / 1960s?
Further Comments: When farmers worked the land where a Second World War airfield once stood, it was reported that they would occasionally be approached by a young man smoking a pipe. This figure would wish them a good evening before vanishing. It was said that this ghost was once a pilot who worked here, though no one can be quite sure of his true past.

Swan Eater

Location: Burscough - Martin Mere
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: 2002
Further Comments: An unknown large creature was seen to attack several swans from beneath the water of the lake - it is believed to be a type of large catfish, which can grow up to sixteen feet in length. There has also been at least one mermaid sighting in the lake, and Sir Lancelot's body is supposed to be buried nearby.

Chairman

Location: Burscough - Stanley Club, Liverpool Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 30 August 2023
Further Comments: The cinema locked away in the upper part of the building is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a former chairman of the Stanley Institute, who in the form of a fleeting shadow, may have been spotted by a visitor to the club.

Flying Wedge

Location: Buxton - 2500 ft above the area
Type: UFO
Date / Time: February 1996
Further Comments: Two pilots in a 737 reported narrowly avoiding a large black wedge shaped UFO while flying into the airport from Milan. The object passed so close to the passenger aircraft that one of the pilots ducked.

Photographed Falling

Location: Chadderton - Kingsley & Forrester Ltd, Gorse Mill, lift shaft
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 1987 or 1988
Further Comments: An engineer in the building photographed the lift shaft, and discovered a white mist appeared on the final print, resembling a falling figure. A local story reports a little girl once fell down the shaft and died. The image can be seen in 'The Best of Fortean Times - The True Life X-Files'.

A radiant woman in the lake.

Lady of the Lake

Location: Charnock Richard - The Dam (lake near Park Hall)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A radiant white female form has been seen a couple of times in the lake within the Hall grounds - it is believed to be a woman who drowned herself after falling in love with a monk. His ghost in turn may haunt the hall.

Leaping Figures

Location: Chipping - Lanes around the demolished Leagram Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: Car engines have been known to cut out in this area without reason. The roads that skirted the hall is locally renowned for their ghostly figures who leap out from behind bushes, and strange mists and noises. The postmistress blamed the death of her dog on three shadowy figures that chased the canine, terrifying the animal so much it refused to eat.

Lizzie Dean

Location: Chipping - The Sun Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: A former cleaner at the establishment, Lizzie took her own life after her other half ran away. Her ghost, seen in maid's outfit, still walks the walls of the building, and sometimes disappears through them.

John Charnock

Location: Chorley - Astley Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2005
Further Comments: Executed for his role in the Bablington plot (1586), Charnock is said to still walk his childhood home. Other ghosts reported here include a lady in grey, another lady in turquoise, and a little girl in Elizabethan clothes who drowned in the nearby lake. The most recent ghost report featured a phantom gamekeeper and his dog who patrolling the ground by the riverbank.

Footsteps

Location: Chorley - Chorley Hospital
Type: Crisis Manifestation
Date / Time: November 1968
Further Comments: Phantom footsteps and the sounds of doors opening and slamming brought staff running in the maternity wing, just in time to discover and save a baby from suffocation.

Figure in White

Location: Chorley - Fox and Goose public house (closed early twentieth century)
Type: Other
Date / Time: March 1887
Further Comments: A landlord and two men discovered a figure in white in the kitchen. The figure made such a strange sound that the men allowed it to leave. The figure was later arrested, when it was revealed the ghost was a burglar who had tried to disguise himself as a paranormal entity.

White Lady

Location: Chorley - Heskin Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Hanged during the Civil War by a traitorous priest, this female member of the Mundesley family still returns home. The beam of wood from which her body dangled is considered lucky if you touch it.

Fred the Technician

Location: Chorley - Little Theatre
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2010s
Further Comments: Fred is one of several entities said to haunt the site, other others being a shadowy figure seen on stage, a man wearing a trilby, a Victorian woman with a child, and an actress.

Sounds and Stones

Location: Chorley - Railway shed
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: November - December 1876
Further Comments: After a suicide at the shed, staff reported hearing strange sounds from the shed. Large stones would be thrown at men working close by, resulting in staff resigning. Detectives investigated but were unable to discover the source of the disturbance.

Young Woman

Location: Chorley - St Marys Presbytery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre 1935
Further Comments: A gas fitter working in the upper part of the building encountered a ghostly young woman which briefly manifested before vanishing again.

An old image of a woman dressed in black standing while the snow falls around her.

Old Woman in Black

Location: Church - Gatty Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghost of an old woman dressed in dark clothing reportedly resides in the park.

Lucette

Location: Clayton le Moors - Dunkenhalgh Hall (currently a hotel) and nearby bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 25 December (reoccurring)
Further Comments: A former maid at the hall, Lucette fell pregnant after a torrid affair with the master - he was not interested in her long term future, so Lucette took her own life. The maid's misty white form now comes back around Christmas to remind others of her fate.

Shadows

Location: Clayton le Moors - Mercer Park
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1984
Further Comments: Shadowy people are said to have been spotted moving around this park. When Mercer House was derelict, candlelight would occasionally be spotted in the attic (although that could have been just trespassers).

Sid in the Cellar

Location: Clayton le Woods - Halfway House public house, Preston Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1999
Further Comments: This shade, sometimes seen sitting by the window, is more at home in the basement where he plays with the lights and says ' excuse me' to passing staff.

Jumping Bottle

Location: Cleveleys - Cleveleys Hotel
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: July 1952
Further Comments: Around a dozen staff watched a bottle of beer lift from a work surface, move and drop to the floor. Over the next three days, other bottles and glasses would fall from shelves, with one witness claim he watched bottles of beer sequentially jump out of their crate and smash. Police investigated the incident and a barmaid admitted to causing the activity, although not all the stories align with her confession of throwing bottles when unobserved.