Holiday Lane in Offerton has two distinct traditions attached to it that I have uncovered over the years.
The older concerns the Offerton Boggart, a non-human entity said to have lived in a barn in the valley below the lane, in the area locally known as the Gnat Hole. The boggart tradition, recorded by Anne Cross in her self-published history of the road, places the creature in the broader north-west English folklore of household spirits, sometimes troublesome, sometimes helpful.
In the spring of 1981, eighteen-year-old Dawn was driving home along Holiday Lane in the early hours when her headlights picked out a luminous white mist hovering around three feet off the ground near a Victorian street lamp. The mist appeared to be forming a shape, glowed despite the lamplight above it, and remained stationary rather than drifting. Drawn toward it, Dawn narrowly avoided a collision with the lamp post when the mist vanished suddenly. The sky was clear and the ground dry.
