West Hill Street, Ashton-under-Lyne

In 1903, residents of West Hill Street in Ashton-under-Lyne reported nightly visits from the ghost of a miner carrying a pickaxe. The new tenants said the spirit appeared from their first night, and six earlier families had also abandoned the house in fear. A minister and a doctor spent a night there with an Irish terrier to investigate but saw only a cat, which the doctor blamed for reflections mistaken as a ghost. Spiritualists later held séances as crowds gathered outside, yet the haunting’s cause was never proven.