The Miner and the Ghost

A cottage once stood in the dell between Eyam and Stoney Middleton, where occupants were terrorised by a woman in a nightdress who tore bedclothes from sleepers and was seen hurrying through the valley. In the early 1800s, a drunken lead miner, Tom “Cockeye” Loxley, boasted he feared no ghost but encountered the spirit, who seized him with icy hands and dragged him down the dell. He was found unconscious the next morning and gave up drink thereafter. The ghost was believed to be a plague victim from Eyam who tried to flee quarantine.