Marching soldiers, a well-dressed gent and a ghostly black dog are all there as residents of Tutbury have been sharing their stories of haunted locations around the village.
And the reports are not just limited to one part of the village, with ghost stories citing locations all over Tutbury.
Lauren Bagnall, 25, said she worked at the Dog and Partridge pub and hotel, in High Street, for around four years and came across the ‘grey lady’.
She said: “I worked there from about 2013 to 2017.
“There was the ‘grey lady’ there. I know it’s cringey but that’s what they called her.
“I used to have to open up on my own and a dark shadow would walk past you into a room and not be there when you went in.
“And the rooms were really haunted.
“There would be TV’s that weren’t on and would suddenly just burst into static.
“You’d always have stuff getting moved.
“It always felt like someone was watching you, like there were always eyes on you even when you were on your own.
“You’d also get the sound of children laughing in the meeting room, that was quite common – my friend said she’d seen a young boy in Victorian clothing.”
Friend or foe?
Although she said the hotel itself was haunted, she said the spirits there were playful and friendly.
It was the old coal store around the back of the pub, which had been converted into a flat where she used to live, that Lauren said harboured the more malevolent ghouls.
She said a former butcher had died there of a heart attack.
“Whatever was in the hotel was quite playful, but in the flat it felt malicious,” she said
“I used to hate it, hate staying there on my own.”
(Image: Google)
She said there were no windows in her bedroom, so she’d often sleep in the living room with all the lights on.
“I’d be watching TV and the plug would just come straight out of the wall,” she said.
“So I’d plug it back in, but it would happen again.
“It got to the point where I’d say, out loud, ‘Can you stop, you’re scaring me.’
“Then one night, I came back from work and the kettle was just sat in the bathroom, unplugged with the stand and everything.
“It was crazy. The whole place was riddled with spirits.”
Ghosts of Bridge Street
She also said she had stayed at the house of her friend, 24-year-old George Williamson, in Bridge Street, which he told her was haunted.
Lauren said: “Upstairs there was this old bedroom, and they would never use that room, they hated it.
“Even the dog wouldn’t walk under the hatch.
“It was just really eerie – it didn’t feel nasty but you never felt alone, you never got any privacy.
“One night, I could hear music, and his record player was just going round on its own.
“Then later that same night, he was at work and I was in my bedroom and I heard an almighty crash and the loft hatch had just hit the deck.”
(Image: Google)
George said Lauren had rang him that night ‘screaming’ while he was working a night shift.
And he said he’d previously seen a man stood in the middle of his bedroom.
“He was dressed in a beige coloured suit,” he said.
“I looked at him but the only part of him that moved to look at me back was his eyes – that was scary.”
He also said he’d felt someone climb on top of him during the night, and even someone grabbing his hand while he was asleep.
He added: “It was a good job because I was late for work!”
A four-legged phantom
But he said that was just one of a series of mysterious goings-on at his home.
He said: “The weirdest one was back in 2007.
“I saw a white glowing ball of light come out of the wall and go through to the next property.
“It gave me and the dog, Billy, a heart attack.”
Lauren’s grandmother, Margaret Harvey, 73, said her dog had also been spooked by something paranormal.
She said she had seen a ghostly black dog on the castle ramparts.
She said: “I was taking my dog for a walk in the grounds and I looked up, and silhouetted against the sky was this huge, black dog stood on top of the ruin walls.
“It didn’t make a sound, it just stood there totally still.
(Image: Lauren Bagnall)
“My dog went running with her tail between her legs.
“I found her back home and she was sat on the doorstep shaking.
“She was part Staffie and nothing frightened her – but that really scared her. And I’ve heard of other people seeing it too.”
She said she had also worked at a haunted paper shop in Monk Street.
“One day I was working behind the counter and a figure of a lady walked across the shop and disappeared through the wall,” she said.
“Tutbury is pretty well haunted.”
A floral exorcism
Tina Adams, 62, who owns a florist in the High Street, said the flat above her old shop, just a few doors down the road from her new one, was also haunted.
She said she had worked on the street for 20 years.
She said: “My son had very bad experiences there.
“He was helping me decorate, and the keys flew out of the door and hit him in the back.
“He came downstairs and he was white as anything – he said, ‘I can’t do any more decorating’ and never went back in.
“I also had two guys, big burly guys, staying there.
“They said it was absolutely awful at night and that they daren’t leave their rooms.”
She said it got so bad that she had to have the property exorcised.
“My mother-in-law is an avid Christian and when she came over I was really frightened.
“So she prayed for me and got the elders from the church and they came and exorcised the place for me.
“But we had left and moved down to the bottom of the road by then because it got really nasty. I couldn’t even decorate.
“It was an absolute nightmare.
(Image: Helen Smith)
“People said this man they were seeing had a tweed jacket and a trilby.
“If I’d have seen anything I’d have died, but because they prayed for me I never had any apparitions – but a lot of my staff did so I know that he was definitely there.
“It felt alive, that florist.”
Another village resident, Samreet Sahota, 32, said she’d lived in her new build home in the village for just under three years.
She said neither she nor her husband had experienced anything, but said her three-year-old son had talked about seeing a man upstairs in their home.
“Although it freaked us out for a while, we’ve put it down to an overactive imagination due to his age,” she said.
The history of the village
Helen Smith, 59, who is studying for a master’s degree in mental health studies, said she had run a ghost walk in the village since 2007.
She said she had researched a lot of the history of the village to try and put some of the paranormal activity into the context of what had happened in the past.
She said: “Along the High Street was the route of the Red Rover coach, in the 18th century, which used to run from Liverpool to London and back, calling in at what is now known as the Dog and Partridge.
“People living in that area of Tutbury have reported hearing the sound of horses and of wooden wheels running over cobbled stones in the early hours of the morning.
(Image: Helen Smith)
“Then at the top end of Monk Street is the Leopard pub.
“Before becoming a public house, it used to be a row of cottages and many staff and customers over the years have experienced lots of paranormal activity there.
“In particular, there is a lovely old gent by the name of ‘Charlie’, who once lived in one of the cottages, who would sit by the fire in his rocking chair, sadly missing his son who had died, but who loved to play fun tricks on some of the staff and customers.”
She also said the ghosts of centuries worth of soldiers who had died at battles near Tutbury Castle also haunted the area, with some locals even reportedly seeing them marching through their living rooms.
Do you live in the area and have you experienced spooky goings on? If so, get in touch with reporter Nathan Standley. Email [email protected] or message us on Facebook.
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