The very tall man of Mollington

A very unusual, and previously unrecorded, ghost from Chester, Cheshire

By Richard Holland

A key purpose of Uncanny UK is to record ghosts and other weird phenomena that were previously unknown. I was delighted, therefore, when Rosie Sedgwick told me about the bizarre apparition that haunts her house near Chester.

Rosie hasn’t seen the ghost herself and for a time assumed it to be no more than a figment of her small daughters’ imagination. However, when an adult saw it, too, she had to conclude that she is sharing her home with something very odd.

Her house, in Mollington, near Chester, has no great antiquity: it was built in 1929. Only two occupants have lived here before Rosie and her family. There’s a rather sad story attached to it. A couple who had been in love for a long time felt unable to marry because the girl’s parents didn’t approve of her choice. Only after they had died did they feel able to tie the knot. Very soon after they were married, however, World War 2 broke out and her new husband was posted abroad, never to return. The grieving widow, who had waited so long to marry her sweetheart, remained alone in the house all the rest of her life. Whether this tragedy has anything to do with the haunting, of course, no one can say.

The Sedgwicks moved into the house in July, 1995. A couple of months later, Rosie’s five-year-old daughter announced, when Rosie began to tuck her into bed: ‘Who was that funny man who was looking at me?’ She told her mother she had seen a man hanging upside down from the door frame by his hands and grinning at her. She wasn’t frightened, just curious.

Rosie was careful not to make anything of this, and didn’t mention anything to her other daughter, aged seven. But a night or two later, she also said she had seen a stranger. She said he had been peering round her bedroom door, ‘but very high up, right at the top of the door’. Smiling and benign, his presence wasn’t alarming, merely unexpected.

Rosie assumed her two children had dreamt up the story between them but one afternoon, not long after her daughters’ sightings, that assumption was shaken. What she presumed was childish fancy was apparently confirmed by an adult, one who had heard nothing about the mysterious upside-down man. One afternoon, Rosie had a few friends and neighbours round and one of them, Philippa, suddenly exclaimed: ‘Oh! Have you got the electricians in or something?’

‘No,’ Rosie replied. ‘Why do you ask?’ Philippa told her that on happening to glance up, she saw a man peering round the corner at the top of the door frame. He was so high up, she assumed he was on a step-ladder or working in the attic.

That’s the end of the mystery for now. We’ll keep you posted should this very unusual apparition make another appearance. It’s true Rosie does make a very delicious variety of home-made liqueurs (which you can read about and buy from www.mygineration.co.uk), but she assures me only tea was being drunk that day!

[SOURCE: Personal communication with the author]

© Richard Holland 2008