In the 1890s, Didsbury antiquarian Fletcher Moss recorded tales of local hauntings, including the ghost of The Swivel House. The spectre, a beautiful lady in powdered hair and red shoes, was said to glide silently through rooms long after the death of the house’s owner, Sam Dean. Later renovations revealed a secret chamber hidden in the chimney, thought to be an old priest’s hole. The full tale from Moss is below.
There is a house at Didsbury that was once called the Swivel House, where a fine lady “walked.” I wrote about it in one of my books on Didsbury; but as every one has not read the tale, here is an extended version. Once upon a time there was an old bachelor named Sam Dean, who lived at the Swivel House. He had made lots of money out of swivels — they were little hand-looms for making tapes or smallwares — and when he died the money was missing, and the house changed hands. Every night there passed through the house a beautiful, fine lady, dressed in the fashion of our grandmothers, all frills and furbelows, powder and patches. She wore a rich silken gown of green flowered brocade, that stood out stiff, and rustled as she walked. Her shoon were of brocade to match, with high wooden heels covered with red leather; and her hair was dressed high off her face, done up with bows of fine ribbons, and pouthered beautifully. On her face were little patches of black to make the skin look whiter, and round her neck she wore a snowy kerchief with the ends tucked in her bosom. She merely glided through the rooms, looking everywhere with a stony stare, but never speaking to any one; and she would quietly vanish away, while her silken gown rustled as the dry leaves rustle in the winds of autumn. No one ever knew who she was, or whence she came, or whither she went, for old Sammy had kept himself to himself. But some feared she was an old sweetheart or light-o’-love who had gotten more from old Sammy than he had ever bargained for.
It is very probable the late Mr. Dean, like many other men who spend their lives in making money, had not had time to study Shakspere, or he might have profited by some of his worldly wisdom. “Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to women.” Or, as an old picture that has hung in our office from time long before I was born, says —
“Silks and satins, scarlets and velvets, Put out the kitchen fire.”
The lady in the high-heeled shoes has probably purged her sins in purgatorial fires or gained rest for her perturbed spirit in some other way, for I do not hear that she has been seen for many years. It is about seventy or eighty years since a new housekeeper, when going to the house, was told she could have any one she liked to sleep with her if she was afraid of the ghost. The house has been rebuilt and enlarged until there is very little if any left of the old building; and since writing the above, and in consequence of writing it, I have heard from the daughter of the man who rebuilt it, that when they were pulling down the old house they found in the chimney-stack a small secret chamber, with some mouldering remains of a chair and table and some fowl bones. It is very singular there should have been this “priest’s hole” unknown to any one, and yet to some extent confirmatory of the old legends. Since the rebuilding, the house has been rechristened twice, and has now a very aristocratic name, so there is little inducement for the lady to revisit her old haunts. I did intend to give the present name of the house, but thought it better to ascertain whether the owner or tenant had any objections to my doing so. So I wrote to ask, and received a reply saying that I was perfectly at liberty to mention anything and everything, and my article was anticipated with pleasure; but a postscript was added saying the wife had been consulted, and she would not allow it on any account, for several of her friends and relatives would never sleep in the house again if they knew; therefore the dread secret must not be publicly divulged.
