Spurstow Hall, Tarporley

Spurstow Hall near Bunbury had a grim reputation for cruelty and murder. Tales told of travellers killed and buried beneath the pantry floor and of a spectral dog heard crunching bones. The family’s downfall came when Squire Spurstow and his brothers plotted to murder a local farmer, Adam Sandbach. Warned in advance, Sandbach struck first, beheading the squire as he tried to climb through a hole in the wall. The body was secretly buried in Bunbury churchyard, but the squire’s ghost was said to haunt the road it travelled, a place still known as Dead Man’s Lane.