“On a dark night, the heavy shadows falling dense across the road, the mist from the river filling the air, the silence of the grave on all, a stout heart might hesitate in passing “thro’ the Rock.”
Cut into the sandstone on the edge of Stockport, the Brinksway road runs above a cluster of manmade caves that date back to the 17th century. Expanded in the 1800s by navvies working on the Stockport Viaduct, the caves have served as homes, workplaces and, for a brief period, air raid shelters during the Second World War.
The single, scant source of any haunting I’ve found comes from a rather atmospheric piece in the Manchester Courier from 1860, detailing a ramble through the Stockport area. Our unknown author describes the spot as picturesque by day, but warns that after nightfall it becomes a place a traveller might think twice about passing, “especially if he happens to be conversant with the legendary lore of the place.” That lore proves a grim one: “For a few paces on was Peggy Travis foully and atrociously murdered by drunken men, and her ghost walks nightly; and in that cave half-way through the dark passage report sayeth the body of a new-born babe which had breathed was found.”
The piece states that the tale is of some 30 years standing, placing the event around 1830, but who Peggy Travis was, and the details of her murder are lost to history; I’ve found no trace of her name in any other sources. It’s interesting to note, however, that the caves are commonly known as ‘Maggie’s Caves’. Again, I’ve yet to find any records indicating where that name comes from, yet traditionally the name Peggy was a diminutive version of the name Margaret. It may well be that although her story is lost, her name lives on in this way.
