Photograph: Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Stories, places and what people found
Sheffield Ghosts
Explore Sheffield ghost stories by place and period. We show where each account came from, distinguish history from folklore, and let members keep or share their own findings.
Haunted Sheffield timeline
Follow when Sheffield’s recorded scares, local traditions and later retellings entered the city’s story. Dates describe the surviving account; they do not certify a supernatural cause.
1800-1899Victorian Sheffield
Printed folklore, expanding newspapers and a changing industrial city gave many Sheffield ghost traditions the form in which they are repeated today.
The Dusk Figure at Norton Church
An 1840 tradition tells of a woman appearing while Norton’s parish clerk played the organ at dusk.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash.Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash Gabriel Hounds over Stannington
Stannington tradition interpreted strange cries overhead as Gabriel Hounds whose passing foretold a death.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash.Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash The Headless Woman of Dead Man’s Lane
Ecclesall folklore attached fairy rings and a headless woman to a lane remembered as Dead Man’s Lane.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Jacob Amson / Unsplash.Jacob Amson / Unsplash The Campo Lane Ghost
Newspaper reports linked a Campo Lane haunting story with the death of a Sheffield woman in 1855; later papers continued to retell and dispute the tale.
Evidence labelDocumented history
Photograph: T / Unsplash.T / Unsplash Mary, Queen of Scots at Manor Lodge
A long-running Sheffield tradition places the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots in the Turret House at Manor Lodge, where she was held during her years in captivity.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Sue Winston / Unsplash.Sue Winston / Unsplash The Wardsend Cemetery Boy Legend
A later ghost story grew around a supposed child victim of Wardsend’s 1862 “body-snatching” scandal, but the historical accusations were not proved.
Evidence labelDisputed account
Photograph: Steve O / Unsplash.Steve O / Unsplash The Ship Inn’s Flood Smugglers
A Shalesmoor pub tradition says two figures in the cellar were smugglers drowned during the Great Sheffield Flood.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Renée Nicole / Unsplash.Renée Nicole / Unsplash The Park Ghost and the Cholera Monument Crowd
A ghost rumour around Clay Wood and the Cholera Monument drew large crowds in May 1873 and became part of Sheffield’s Spring-heeled Jack scare.
Evidence labelDocumented history
Photograph: Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash.Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash The Barker’s Pool Apprentice Ghost
A glowing window figure attracted a huge Barker’s Pool crowd in 1875, until a police officer offered a practical explanation.
Evidence labelDisputed account
Photograph: Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash.Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash The Boggard of Bunting Nook
Bunting Nook has a published nineteenth-century ghost tradition involving a boggard seen where roads crossed near Norton.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Jacob Amson / Unsplash.Jacob Amson / Unsplash
1900-1999Twentieth-century reports
Reported encounters and later retellings are shown with the source and evidence label the surviving record can actually support.
The Burngreave Cemetery Runner
Two witnesses reported a mysterious runner heading towards Burngreave Cemetery on a wet October night in 1933.
Evidence labelReported account
Photograph: T / Unsplash.T / Unsplash Colonel Bright at Carbrook Hall
Carbrook Hall’s best-known tradition places Parliamentarian Colonel John Bright on the stairs of the surviving Jacobean building.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Sue Winston / Unsplash.Sue Winston / Unsplash The Ghosts of Stocksbridge Bypass
Reports of children and a hooded figure during construction turned the Stocksbridge Bypass into one of Sheffield’s best-known modern legends.
Evidence labelReported account
Photograph: Steve O / Unsplash.Steve O / Unsplash
2000-presentModern accounts and findings
Recent testimony and community findings remain separate from older research, with moderation and privacy controls for anything members share.
Ghost Stories from the Old West Bar Station
The Victorian police, fire and ambulance station now housing the National Emergency Services Museum has accumulated staff and investigation stories.
Evidence labelReported account
Photograph: Renée Nicole / Unsplash.Renée Nicole / Unsplash The Ghost Stories of Sheffield Lyceum
Sheffield Theatres preserves stories of former managers, lost lovers and staff encounters inside the Lyceum.
Evidence labelReported account
Photograph: Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash.Aleksei Agafonov / Unsplash The Neepsend Hell Hole
A nineteenth-century Sheffield tradition placed an entrance to the lower world somewhere between Neepsend and Rutland Road.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash.Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash The Old Queen’s Head Beer Drinker
A pub tradition describes an elderly drinker beside the stone fireplace and a mischievous child at the Old Queen’s Head.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: Jacob Amson / Unsplash.Jacob Amson / Unsplash The White Lady and Canon of Beauchief Abbey
Beauchief’s traditional white figure and spectral religious figure sit alongside the documented history of its medieval Premonstratensian community.
Evidence labelLocal folklore
Photograph: T / Unsplash.T / Unsplash