The Paranormal Database

Foul Language

Location: Helston (Cornwall) - Poldark Mine
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2005
Further Comments: Mostghosts, a Helston based team of paranormal investigators, claimed to have recorded a phantom voice which curses while telling people to leave the mine.

A sketch of a pair of eyes by Wayne Lowden.

Eyes

Location: Leigh (Greater Manchester) - Platt Lane, Pretoria Pit colliery area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1980s
Further Comments: It was reported that dozens of pairs of eyes would look out of bushes along this lane, and that they belonged to the 368 people who died in an accident at Pretoria Pit. Prior to this disaster, miners on route to work would sometimes encounter the sound of an invisible horse which ran past them.

Pony in a Pit

Location: Littleburn (Durham) - Littleburn Colliery
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 31 December 1919
Further Comments: A worker on night shift reported seeing a phantom pony walking in the pit, which was grabbed by a disembodied arm - exactly fifteen years previous on that very night, a worker had been killed in the pit by a runaway pony.

Miner

Location: Llay (Clwyd) - Llay Miners Welfare Institute
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This site is said to be the home of a miner who perished in an accident at the nearby colliery.

Winner

Location: Maesteg (Mid Glamorgan) - Mountainside near Colliery
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A group of miners playing cards invited a passing stranger to join their game. He sat with them, quickly winning all hands, although the game quickly came to an end when the miners fled, having realised their guest had cloven feet.

Drunken Miner

Location: Maltby (South Yorkshire) - Quarry near local mine
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: September 2005
Further Comments: Two lads walking by here came across a semi-naked man drinking from a cider bottle who warned the pair to be careful. The figure entered a nearby shaft and vanished. One of the witnesses later found out that a former miner with a drinking problem was found dead in the area, his body discovered in the slurry pit.

Dragon's Mine

Location: Manaton (Devon) - Unknown tin mine
Type: Dragon
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A winged lizard set up its lair in an old tin mine and its hissing heard for miles around. The dragon was killed in the pit, but no one appears to have wanted to take credit.

Mansfield Miner

Location: Mansfield (Nottinghamshire) - Clipstone Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1984
Further Comments: Two miners encountered a spectral miner wearing clothing from the 1930s. The entity placed its hand on the shoulder of one of the miners, and both men ran.

Highwayman

Location: Moulton St Mary (Norfolk) - Callow (or Caller) Pit
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A phantom highwayman would ride around this pit before heading towards Callow Spong (where he would vanish). The pit itself was said to be the home of the Devil, who dragged one man down into its waters after he tried to fish out a chest of coins.

Wild Edric

Location: No fixed abode (Shropshire) - Lead Mines
Type: Fairy
Date / Time: 1800s
Further Comments: A county hero, Wild Edric is said to emerge from the lead mines where he lives and charge off towards England's enemies when required. Once flesh and blood, it is thought his fairy wife may have had a hand in making him and his troops immortal.

A ghostly miner at Babbington Colliery.

Victorian Worker

Location: Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) - Babbington (occasionally spelt Babington) Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: It is unclear whether this former mine was haunted by one miner or several. In one case a miner wearing old-style clothing was spotted walking into an area that was being sealed off. In another incident, a group of miners watched a figure wearing coal dust covered clothing, apart from a bright white scarf. As they approached him, the figure faded from view; a dirty white scarf lay at the spot he had vanished.

Miner

Location: Pontypool (Gwent) - Baldwin's Clog & Legging Mine (aka Brace's Level?)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: December 1904
Further Comments: Miners refused to work alone after a ghostly figure with a naked light in its forehead was observed tapping the roof and sides of a tunnel. One newspaper claimed the figure could only be seen from one direction.

Shoulder Rider

Location: Rhondda (Mid Glamorgan) - Path to Ocean Colliery (aka Maendy Pit)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: September 1887
Further Comments: A colliery worker walking along the path lagged a short distance behind his colleagues, as they headed towards a late shift. The lone worker felt a tap on his shoulder; he turned his head to see an ethereal woman standing behind him who then promptly vanished. The man's cries caused his colleagues to run over, and after telling the group what he had seen, they all ran. The entity reappeared, gave chase, and clambered upon one worker's shoulders before once again vanishing.

White Woman

Location: Risca (Gwent) - Miner's graves near campsite in nearby forest
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2000s?
Further Comments: This area is home to a phantom woman in white and a strange shadowy figure, speculated by some to be a former miner.

Mauled Miner

Location: Rotherham (South Yorkshire) - Silverwood Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid to late twentieth century
Further Comments: This phantom miner was seen wearing old overalls carrying a lamp - his most distinct feature was the black space that filled the place where his facial features should have been.

Wilfred Hales

Location: Shirebrook (Derbyshire) - Shirebrook Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1958
Further Comments: Two separate miners reported seeing the glowing form of Wilfred Hales, a worker at the colliery who had died three years previous.

Man Shaped

Location: Shirland (Derbyshire) - Mine (closed 1965)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late October or Early November, 1867
Further Comments: Two miners fled the pit after one of them claimed to have seen a man-shaped ghost. Word spread through the camp and almost 200 men refused to work that day.

Dorcas

Location: St Agnes (Cornwall) - Old mine, Polbreen
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman who committed suicide near the mine was often seen drifting around the site, and once saved the life of a miner by calling his name, preventing him from being buried by a rock fall.

Old Man

Location: Stoney Middleton (Derbyshire) - Sallet Hole Mine
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Wayne Anthony, in Haunted Derbyshire and the Peak District, writes that an elderly gentleman in flat cap and long coat takes his dog for a walk around the mine. The apparitions quickly vanish when seen.

Dead Miners

Location: Swansea (West Glamorgan) - Morfa Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1890
Further Comments: As if attempting to warn against the incoming disaster that killed 87, the days leading up to the event bore witness to screams and cries coming from the mining tunnels, and visual reports of miners who had previously lost their lives.

Cap Lamp

Location: Teversal (Nottinghamshire) - Silverhill colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: An Inspector travelling underground alone spotted a cap lamp in the distance which remained always just ahead of him. Later, while sawing planks for the gate end team, the man said his job suddenly became easier when it felt like someone was helping him saw by pulling and pushing the other end of his equipment. Startled, he let go of the handle only to see the saw complete another two strokes by itself.

Grime's Graves, Thetford.

The Devil's Holes

Location: Thetford (Norfolk) - Grime's Graves, prehistoric flint mine
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: The name 'Grime's Graves' is thought to have come about in the sixteenth century, Grime being a corruption of Grim, a pagan god that Christians associated with the devil.

Spirits

Location: Towednack (Cornwall) - Old mine known as Wheal Sperris
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The mine had a reputation of being home to spirits, but the finer points of the haunting are not known.

A green light and a phantom youthful face.

Young Miner

Location: Warsop (Nottinghamshire) - Colliery
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A chock fitter encountered a green light and a youthful face that terrified him while in the pit. The fitter later spotted a photograph in the canteen, showing the figure he had met - the youth had died in an accident ten years previous. There were other reports of three figures walking together, though they always disappeared without warning.

Screaming

Location: Weardale (Durham) - The North of England Lead Mining Museum - formally the killhope lead mine
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 2003
Further Comments: Three ghost hunters wanting to raise money for charity tried to spend the night here, only to be scared off by screaming of a ghostly woman from a nearby wood.