Or the haunted farming memory of Wildboarclough … Possibly the most intense investigation I have yet attended…
Midnight at The Crag Inn was when it all kicked off!!
The Crag Inn… an alehouse since 1825… stands secluded high on the dark edged groves of Macclesfield Forest with weather swept Shutlingsloe looming above.. well known to muddy booted ramblers and those Sunday drivers who would lose themselves on scarily narrow, blind bended Cheshire lanes… had opened their doors to paranormal investigation when after refurbishing the place they began to realise they may not be as alone as they thought, when they had seen the last customers of the night out of the premises…
…The investigation had started off fairly routinely with introductions in the car park, gathering outside in an opening circle seance , I did receive a slightly rougher buffering than usual and there was quite an interesting response from some spirit energy in the out house beer store, possible site of a farm labourers suicide.. (The Crag had been built in 1629 as a farm house). A table tipping excercise in here elicited stirrings…. bringing something out of the shadows that was able to grasp one of our fellow guests around the neck at one stage… (his blood curdling screams stayed with me for days…)(!)
So there we were, sat in the traditionally furnished bar, log fire crackling away, recomposing ourselves with a pie and pea supper, a convivial atmosphere pervading around us as a few explored dingy corners of the pub in hope of picking up on some otherworldly feeling… we were discussing the phantom neck grabber I remember and debated the worth of taking a ouija board out to him as the clock crept around to the witching hour … When all of a sudden three incredibly loud bangs resounded from the ceiling… as if some heavy person was jumping up and down on the floor above!
Suddenly the chatting and merriment between us stopped abruptly… the welcoming atmosphere given us by the Inns current keepers had shifted gravely, someone was throwing a strop upstairs, except there was no living soul up there.. we were all accounted for.. the event host started to climb the staircase but aborted the mission half way up.. filled with too much dread to proceed… something was up there, something not from our plane of existence… something either demanding attention… or wanting us out of its home…
A seance was conducted… we all gathered around one long table, hands joined, nervous to break the circle as a frisson of dread surrounded us… oppressive and intense.. questions were asked.. no polite reply was received… that we could discern anyway!
I have to say at this point, I have never before heard such definitive footsteps.. (which had by now creepily started coming down the stairs toward us..), walking over the floor above us, spirit knocks on walls, all around the place, toilets, back bar storeroom… An electric kettle behind the bar, (whilst the bar staff were sat with us during all this), had turned itself on twice! Disembodied voices were in conversation with one another, as if they were discussing their next ploy to try scare us out… which in the very creepy atmosphere being generated inside the Crag they were quite close to succeeding! Thankfully they had spent so much energy that around one in the morning, all started going quiet….
The inn keepers… a young couple relatively inexperienced to pub management.. were astounded, a little frightened also.. “in the time they had been in, there had not been any activity like that”, they stated. . The managers didn’t “live in” at that time, they drove up from Macc, and drove back home after last orders… and they were visibly shocked!
As we all sat ashen faced.. a powerful beam of light pierced the pitch black outside… and the late night taxi I had booked swung into the car park… not a moment too soon perhaps… I took my leave of a “traumatised group of folk and a lady medium who was wondering how she was going to quieten those spirits down… I’ve never been back since.. the place is apparently very calm in the day and they used to do good beer and food… I guess those poor simple resident ghosts, weary from their farming toil, (at least three of them by the ‘feel’ and sound of it) were very upset with us being there and were just fed up that we were interrupting their bed time… Looking back on my photographs later.. there was one anomalous figure captured …stood behind a hatch where no one had been all night… of course I could have easily been wrong.. maybe someone had just ducked in… ?
What a place… I’ve been in some haunted pubs in my time but never experienced so much spectacular stuff!
This was only the second investigation there , instigated by DeadLive UK at that time …(March 2019)… what the heck subsequent investigation will bring …goodness only knows!!
The Crag Inn is on the edges of a village called Wildboarclough .. twenty minutes drive, or four miles walk, up out of Macclesfield!
Shutlingsloe, also known as the Macclesfield Matterhorn!
Hubert Hobux 