Is it true that lodge moor is meant to be haunted.

Ive lived there for years but have recently been told about a ghost called the white lady or something that haunts redmires road

I've read books that state that Lodge Moor Rd is haunted. Lot's of stories of farmers seeing ghosts etc. Check out the local history books in Broomhill Library.

I've spotted many a corpse at The Sportsman, most of them tucking into a meat and potato pie. Some even bring their dogs with them.

It's easy to see why ghost stories abound up Lodge Moor. The hospital always had a spooky appearance (and feel. Did you ever walk through those corridors on your own?), plus ofcause, its connections with disease, injuries and death. The weather can be very harsh up here - fog and mist and it's ALWAYS windy and then there's the connection with the WWI training grounds with trenches still in situ (not to mention those poor souls who trained up there only to go and give their lives for our freedom).

I only know of one story of a ghost (and not an awful lot about it at that). A bloke set off from either Wyming Brook Farm or maybe even The Three Merry Lads, walking over Roper Hill toward, I believe, Derbyshire. He never made it, being a dark, cold night and supposedly his ghost can still be seen around the Roper Hill, Soughley Lane area. (Derek Acorah and Yvette Fielding might be able to turn this story into a compelling episode of Most Haunted.)

I love the place - I am lucky to live up here 'in the clouds'. Do a search on ghosts because I am sure there have been other instances of ghosts being witnessed in Lodge Moor.

Finally, whenever I run past the gypsy camp, I tend to find an extra gear - now that's scary (and shows good common sense).

Ousetunes,
An interesting post there re Lodge Moor. I think you do a good job there of 'unpacking' the reasons why the area might be associated with ghosts.

As you know, I am an ex-pat [darkest Lancashire], but when we lived in Crookes, I used to cycle up to the Stanage area. I remember feeling very ill at ease one afternoon standing at Stanage Pole, surveying all around me. That really is an eery place, on a windswept, cloudy late afternoon. I am surprised that there are not many ghost sightings there, with the remnant of a Roman road, and the bleak, craggy landscape.

Mind you, Crookes has its ghosts. Clough Field, as I once mentioned on another thread, is reputed to be haunted. I always poured ridicule upon the tales, that is, until one night in the late 80s when taking my dog for an evening walk. But that is another story.

You can't leave us in suspenders like that!! Come on Timo, tell us your ghost story!

As it is you, dear heart, I shall. I have told this tale before on a Sheffield ghost thread. I do not claim that what I saw was a 'ghost' in the sense of a disembodied spirit or supernatural entity. There may be a rational explanation for what I saw, as indeed there may well be for many so-called 'ghost' sightings. Perhaps there are perfectly 'natural' phenomena of which we, as yet, know little, and wrongly attribute to the world of spirits. I do not know. However, this is what happened.

From the mid 80s until 1991, we lived in Crookes. Local folklore has it that Clough Field, near the Cemetary, is haunted by the ghost of a Victorian schoolboy. Apparently, the ghost is seen running across the field, in Victorian garb, but 'white lights' have also been reported. A colleague at the time, lived at nearby Crosspool, and he made the remark that he would never walk on the field, or on the nearby footpath which leads past the field and the Cemetary at night. When he told me why, I ridiculed and mocked him [much as I do unfortunate posters on the forum...]. Perhaps I should have held my tongue.

One night later, in Autumn, already rendered eery by the calls of Tawny Owls, I walked my dog [then a huge Labrador, named 'Basil'] down the footpath which leads past the Cemetary, until I reached a stone wall where one can lean and look across the 'haunted' field. After a few minutes, I smiled to myself thinking what a fool my colleague was, and began to turn away. Then, in all honesty, from the corner of my eye, I saw a white flash whoosh across the field like a flame. I cried out in horror, and my dog became very agitated. Filling the air with terrified foul language, I grabbed Basil's lead and made haste down the path, stopping only when I had reached the football pitch. What on earth had I seen?

Previously, I had ridiculed the stories, as some bright spark might try to do to this one. However, I DID see something flash across that field, and it did not seem 'natural'. Cynics may say that the whole scenario, from the folklore to the eery setting near a Cemetary is just too convenient for the tale. They might say that such surroundings, and the rumour of a haunting, would lead to the mind playing 'tricks' on itself. I do not think so. Strangely, like the ghost of the Anglo-Saxon King in M.R.James' A Warning to the Curious, the white flash was seen in the corner of the eye. This 'half-seeing' is a reported phenomenon. Cynics, again, would say 'why are these ghosts never captured on camera?'. All I can say is, if that was the ghost described in local folklore, it moved too fast for most cameras- like a sheet of white flame, an absolutely startling experience.

I don't think of the experience very often. However, when I do it gives me pause for thought. The question occurs, would I be tempted to walk past Clough Field late at night today? And the answer is, no!

There are a few Ghost stories of lodge moor i know about (i've have lived there all my life). The First is of a headless horseman who has been seen running down from the three merrys and disapearing at the bus turn-around. I have also heard about the white lady - and then theres the WW2 plane that crashes into the trees and fire can be seen, on the opposite side of the road to the hospital but further up towards the dams.
However the only experience i had was when i was walking my dog along the crags and Public Footpath in november last year. I had seen knowbody all night, as i walked up to the Sportsman i saw a light flickering towards the far end of the football pitches near to the woods. I always walk across the field let the dog have a run and then pick up the public footpath back along the old Hospital grounds which comes out near the New Park (the Old berkdale pitches). I tried to let the dog off his lead but he just wouldn't budge - so i kept him on and head'd up towards the path - as i grey nearer i saw a man digging in the courner of the trees - he turned and looked at me with these demonic eyes - the dog started barkin and he turned away - then he went into the trees and came out dragging a body behind him - there was nobody else around so i decided me and jack(the dog) could take him, we ran towards the area but when we got there - nothing. No grave, no body, no man - i searched the area a little but the light which had been so ever present was gone and i could bearly see a thing now. I seen felt a chill and so headed home shapish - i told the wife and she investigated. Turns out there was a patient at the Lodge Moor Isolation Hospital - the hospital was mainly used for contagious diseases - however they also had a mental ward for the mental ill patients in the area - this was expanded in 1903. One of these patients had been locked up for the sacrificial killings of women in the area of crosspool - and had con't these killings whilst he was at the Hospital in lodge moor - bodies of missing patients turned up around the area of the hospital!

When i found that out i changed the route i walked the dog.

:help: its true simon - aparntly there was a man named John William Timmons - he killed around 20 girls over a long period of time both whilst he lived in crosspool and when he was locked up at the isolation ward. Although its really difficult to get information about both the hospital and John Williams. I did find out that the only reason he was discovered killing girls at the hospital was bacause three girls went missing in the space of a month - one of them being the new ward nurse. She was later found under his bed - and after that he was kept locked up at the hospital under supervision until his death years later. I also found the reasoning behind it was that he had acute schizo - thats why he didn't go to prison. He said he had spoke to god - and apparntly had made up these two other characters which helped him with the killings altho these were all a part of his imagination and condition. All the killings were sacrifictial to god - and he left a page of the bible with them all. Simon, these sightings a rare, not that many people know about this man - but he was definatly a patient at the hospital.

That all makes perfect sence -
my wife mentiond something about the killer thinking women were the devil and that god has chosen him to cleanse them from the world. I didn't realise the Isolation Hospital was for mental patients - although like i say it makes perfect sence - scary!

Its true simon - the hospital was deffinatly an Isolation Hospital with a mental ward - it was further developed in 1903. If its true then JWT wasn't kept that isolated. Apparntly the hospital used the old skool methods slightly - having all the (mental) patients playing cricket - lol.
Did you know the green at the David Wilson homes is the origional green from the hospital - i wonder if JWT put someone under there. Maybe thats what the tree was planted on - oh yeh and i live around there and heard a similar storey!

But im sure the main one around that area is deffinatly the white lady or the headless hourse!

:o maybe the white lady is one of his victims?

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!:gag:

:suspect: or maybe we are all mad :loopy:

I won't be walkin aound that area in november tho - lol!

Well actlly Wallstreet thats true - he only killed like women once a year - and waited till the winter season so he could drag them out under cover of darkness. Your comment about the November season couldn't be nearer to the truth!

:( well im mullered then!

Mod note:

SheffieldBlu, simonLodgeM, and WallstreetWi, it's a good story, but seeing as you appear to be one person talking to yourself through 3 accounts I think we'll use a pinch of salt. ;)

All 3 accounts will now be banned so please contact Admin to tell us which one of your multiple personalities you would like to continue using.

Seen as how you lot are talking about ghosts, I'm just reposting this from my thread in the 'History & Expats' section:-

I lived on Hopefield Avenue in Frecheville from '73 when I was born 'til moving in '82, and I had some horrific experiences. My formative years were quite literally like something from a low budget Hollywood horror flick. As an adult I have tried via the WWW to locate anything relating to this but cannot. I was just wandering if there is anyone else out there who has had, or knows of someone else who has had, any similar experiences, regardless of the year. I'm interested in swapping notes and also on trying to find any possible explanation. I should point out that although, as one close friend put it, I attract strange things like a magnet, I do still fall quite firmly in the skeptic camp though do have an open mind.

Anyone out there able to offer any input?

I only know of one story of a ghost (and not an awful lot about it at that). A bloke set off from either Wyming Brook Farm or maybe even The Three Merry Lads, walking over Roper Hill toward, I believe, Derbyshire. He never made it, being a dark, cold night and supposedly his ghost can still be seen around the Roper Hill, Soughley Lane area. (Derek Acorah and Yvette Fielding might be able to turn this story into a compelling episode of Most Haunted.)

I wonder if this is the same story, or connected. It's in a book about the Mayfield Valley. The person telling the tale was at a party around Christmas at Fulwood Head Farm in the early 1920's. A while after midnight one of the guests, a young woman who lived at the Sportsman decided to walk home. The man telling the tale decided to see her home, and having done so, set off back to the farm. On the way he was suddenly overcome with what he called 'an ague so intense he almost staggered.' He was shivering violently and could hardly move. Somehow he kept going and suddenly the feeling left him. It was at a point on Spencer Lane, just before he turned into Soughley Lane. When he got to the farm he told them the story, and they gave him a stiff drink and sent him to bed. The next day the farmer asked him what had happened and where. He told him the story and the farmer asked him what he'd seen. He replied he hadn't seen anything, just the feeling. Later that day the farmer said to him that he thought 'it had died down.' He asked what he meant, and the farmer told him that at one time there was a spectre so terrifying at the bend into Soughley lane that no-one would dare pass there around midnight. He told a story about a group of men at the Three Merry Lads who one night got to talking about the ghost. Having had a few, one farmer bet the rest that he'd go along there at midnight the next night, alone. All duly turned up. The farmer arrived on horseback and on the stroke of midnight rode up the lane. After about 100 yards the horse stopped and stood trembling violently, and couldn't be made to go any further. then the horse turned round and bolted back through the crowd in a lather of sweat. He tried again but the horse refused to move. He didn't say what happened to the bet!

I go through Lodge Moor regular mainly coming home from training on the bike across the Mayfield valley and Brownhills then Lodge Moor lane/road and can honestly say I have never felt uneasy.
however I have to go back to about 1973 when we camped in a field opp the hospital.
There were a good dozen of us there with two tents.
Everyone else stayed in an ex army tent while me and my elder Bro stayed in what can only be discribed as a bed sheet and in the early hours a figure appeared with a dog outside my white sheet and looked like he was holding a gun.
As the dog sniffed around the tent for what seemed to go on for a couple of minutes it eventually ceased and I shot out of the tent quite frightened by this experience and there was noone around.
nobody could have got out of that field as quick as that it was a large one and we called the police due to the gun.
after the police came they told us there were looking for an escaped patient from the asylem and he was dangerous, I believe we came across that guy that night but never explained the presence of the dog.

:help: its true simon - aparntly there was a man named John William Timmons - he killed around 20 girls over a long period of time both whilst he lived in crosspool and when he was locked up at the isolation ward. Although its really difficult to get information about both the hospital and John Williams. I did find out that the only reason he was discovered killing girls at the hospital was bacause three girls went missing in the space of a month - one of them being the new ward nurse. She was later found under his bed - and after that he was kept locked up at the hospital under supervision until his death years later. I also found the reasoning behind it was that he had acute schizo - thats why he didn't go to prison. He said he had spoke to god - and apparntly had made up these two other characters which helped him with the killings altho these were all a part of his imagination and condition. All the killings were sacrifictial to god - and he left a page of the bible with them all. Simon, these sightings a rare, not that many people know about this man - but he was definatly a patient at the hospital.

I think I would pour a healthy, and Cheshire-Salt-Mines-sized dose of salt on blu/simon/wall st's stories...

To my knowledge (and I worked there) there was no mental ward @ lodge moor hospital. In the olden days it was an isolation hospital, for diseases like TB and Scarlet Fever, and later, part of it became a spinal injuries unit as reknowned as Stoke Mandeville.

all these missing women... they'd have made the headlines nationally, n'eer mind locally.

the only "mass murderers" with any Sheffield connections are Christie (Of 10 Rillington Place infamy) and (Albeit a tenuous link- he was caught in Sheffield, never murdered in Sheff'd) Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper.

Algy -

I believe that is the story I was trying to tell. I too read it in a book (I think I was actually sat in the Three Merry Lads when I was reading it).

As I mentioned previously, I used to run up Redmires Road often and whilst the area can sometimes be bleak, for what is an open and lonely environment, one never senses that he is truly alone. I always sense the presence of others yet whilst it's a slightly disturbing feeling, it isn't a threatening one.

Maybe I'm guilty of 'trespassing on a memory' (a beautiful phrase used, I think by Emily Bronte) in that I'm a present day 'being' roaming over a place haunted by its past. The ghosts aren't chasing me off, just quietly tut-tutting their disappointment.

Early last summer I was in the Sportsman one night and remarked how warm it was upon leaving around 11.30pm. When I got down to the dip in Redmires Road (prior to the 51 terminus and precisely where a water conduit turns into an open stream) the temperature turned into a fridge. I shivered, it was that cold.

Whilst common sense would say the drop in temperature was related to the stream, it still makes me wonder if there's more to Lodge Moor than meets the eye.

I was up there in the dark last night. It's only scary if you imagine it to be.

Although I'm going to be finding out on some more night rides in the near future.

yours

Egon Spengler

I'm intrigued now, gonna have to google Lodge Moor!

Anyone driving through Lodge Moor will notice a certain creepyness about the area, specifically around the new estate where the hospital used to be. I'm not a big believer in ghosts, but it's a very strange feeling when you drive or walk around there - especially knowing that a lot of people must have died in that very area, not just in the hospital but also when that plane crashed in 1955.

not just in the hospital but also when that plane crashed in 1955.Only ONE person died as a result of the plane crash IIRC

I've spotted many a corpse at The Sportsman, most of them tucking into a meat and potato pie. Some even bring their dogs with them.

It's easy to see why ghost stories abound up Lodge Moor. The hospital always had a spooky appearance (and feel. Did you ever walk through those corridors on your own?), plus ofcause, its connections with disease, injuries and death. The weather can be very harsh up here - fog and mist and it's ALWAYS windy and then there's the connection with the WWI training grounds with trenches still in situ (not to mention those poor souls who trained up there only to go and give their lives for our freedom).

I only know of one story of a ghost (and not an awful lot about it at that). A bloke set off from either Wyming Brook Farm or maybe even The Three Merry Lads, walking over Roper Hill toward, I believe, Derbyshire. He never made it, being a dark, cold night and supposedly his ghost can still be seen around the Roper Hill, Soughley Lane area. (Derek Acorah and Yvette Fielding might be able to turn this story into a compelling episode of Most Haunted.)

I love the place - I am lucky to live up here 'in the clouds'. Do a search on ghosts because I am sure there have been other instances of ghosts being witnessed in Lodge Moor.

Finally, whenever I run past the gypsy camp, I tend to find an extra gear - now that's scary (and shows good common sense). Dont bother about Most Haunted thats all a scam ! They are cheats and thats why its no longer on TV.

I am real though and my master is the mighty Gozer!!!

I grew up at Lodgemoor and never saw a ghost, nor ever heard any stories about any.

Ghosts or no ghosts, I would love one of those bungalows on Lodge Moor Road, albeit I don't like the estate that stands just up the road, where the hospital was located.

It all sets itself up for ghost stories, Fulwood Homes, Lodge Moor Hospital, the prisoner of war camp, a plane crash, the lovely Sue Fidler killed in a car crash, and god only knows what else.

Tres tres interesant comment here related to John Williams Timmons - and fascinating ghost sighting. Does anyone know who the "phil" who reports this is? Would love to know more.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/sense_of_place/ghost_stories/index.shtml
"Phil - sheffield
Sheffield, Lodge Moor. I Have recently moved house up to the New David Wilson Homes. We live on a large green and there is a single tree which exists from before the housing development took place. We were having a few friends round for a meal and i just happened to be passing the window. Outside on the green was a youngish looking man in a white strght jacket - he had escaped from the jacket and was dragging a young looking girl towards the road - me and my friend John ran out to help her and told the girls to lock the door - the man looked up at us with these deranged eyes and then both he and the body ranished - the girls were watching from the window and both saw this happen! Turns out the Housing site is on the old grounds of an isolation hospital - and one of the patients John William Timmons had been sent to the mental ward in wing A because of acute schizophrenia - He had been murdering local girls as he felt females were the work of evil! I had never heard this storey until after that night when i decided to do some reasurch. I will never forget the expression he gave us before he vanished!"

It's a made up story.