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 Most people have heard of Spring Heeled Jack, apparently a ghost like entity with the ability to jump tremendous distances in height and length. In England, during the 1800's there were many sightings from Yorkshire down to Devon, scaring the wits out of people then suddenly disappearing without a trace. Some said he wore a black as night cloak, some said he had horns like the devil but all noticed the fire in his eyes, was he Satan incarnate or merely hysteria amongst common people? I don't know the answer to that but I do know that Sheffield has had a share of encounters with this creature. Mystery Mag.com now investigates...
SHEFFIELD PARK AND THE GHOST... Sheffield has one of the most unique histories in the UK, Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in the Manor Castle, Cromwell sieged then later destroyed Sheffield Castle and then recently there was the blitz of the Steel works. If we look back to the early 1800's, stories of Ghosts and spirits were rife; the Victorians were a macabre lot. In the newspaper clippings of 1808, a letter to the Editor of the Sheffield Times tells of an early encounter with Spring Heeled Jack. "Years ago; many years ago, Sheffield Park as history tells us was composed mainly of trees. Today, it is divided into many farms and dwelling houses, some modern, some very ancient. There is now a coal mine where some of England's greatest nobility have spent part of their lives, either as captive or visitor. Mary, Queen of Scots was prisoner on this estate, also Cardinal Wolsey stayed here......Years ago a famous Ghost walked and played many pranks in this historic neighbourhood. He was known as the Park Ghost or Spring Heeled Jack because of his ability to take great leaps and frighten poor people to death. After all, I think he was a human ghost as he ceased to appear when a certain number of men went with guns and sticks to test his skin. He would lay in hedge bottoms and spring over walls with ease and when little children are unruly to this day, mothers only need to tell them the Park Ghost is coming and it goes a long way towards making them be of better behaviour." So Spring Heeled Jack appeared in Sheffield long before the first recorded sighting in 1837, by Jane Alsop 1, who when opening her door was confronted by a "shadowy figure so tall she had to raise her candle to see the face". The figure crashed in to her but ran when she screamed. Mrs Alsop later told police "His eyes were like balls of fire." For the next 68 years there would be a series of sightings including the "mythical" footprints found across South Devon in February 1855. (Hoof prints were found going up the side of buildings and over housetops. One researcher told me he thought it was a UFO's tracking device!?!)2 1970's, JACK'S RETURN? I came across the following stories quite by accident, I was actually investigating a claim by a witness that they had seen a UFO, when I asked them if they had any other encounters of the paranormal, they began to tell me about the strange encounters of Westbury Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield. I knew there had been many strange sightings at Attercliffe from the many reports I received from different witnesses over the past ten years. I can only assume that during the 1970's the strangeness level had been turned up to eleven (Not ten..). Reports of huge birds, black dogs, UFOs, ghosts and "strange entities" are common from this area, but in 1977 the Sheffield Council leveled the greater part of this area. The witness began to tell me about the "Prowler" of Westbury Street, "When we moved into our house in 1973, our neighbours told us to be careful at night because there had been trouble with a prowler. Apparently he had knocked on windows, punched men and grabbed women. We were also told this is the reason why there were police cars always parked at the end of the road. One night, I was coming back from town with my new boyfriend when we saw a dark figure slip into one of the alleyways, we were cautious and decided to walk in the middle of the road, slowly we walked passed the alleyway. Suddenly we noticed two bright red circles, they came closer then we realised it was his eyes. We began to run and my boyfriend felt something hit his back, he turned around and lying on the floor was a pitchfork type tool, like a hay fork, he picked it up then we ran home. We contacted the police and a Sergeant Trevor Basendale, came and took the fork away for evidence..the strange thing is he didn't offer no explanation at all for what we saw." The witness's father then decided to tell his story, "I always remember one night we heard laughter coming from our attic, we also heard banging and shouting. Reluctantly, I had a look. The attics of the terraced houses of Westbury Street were not cordoned off, and somehow the prowler had got into the attics, there were five maybe more people chasing after him across the beams. I always remember that one of them put his foot through our next door neighbours ceiling, the strange thing is though was that the prowler ran across the ceilings without crashing through. This lasted for about half an hour, the prowler laughed all the time." "Can you describe him?" I asked. "Oh, he was tall, very tall 6 feet 6inches at least, dressed in black, he also had a black cape that night, but his face I can't remember just those burning red eyes, I honestly think he was the Devil." I was very intrigued about these sightings than the actual sighting I was there for. I must say though, I took a pinch of salt with the sightings, after all it was twenty years ago. Then two weeks later I received a phone call from a chap in Worksop, Notts. He lived in Westbury Street in the 70's and wanted to report a UFO sighting that took place. After taking his sighting I politely asked if I could ask him some questions. The first being "Do you know anything about a prowler?". The reply was quite shocking, "Oh, you mean him who ran up the side of buildings? I replied "Yes." "Well, I never saw him personally but I heard all about him, about the mid seventies we moved to a road off Broughton Lane. They were nice small houses, over looking Attercliffe and Westbury Street. Our next-door neighbour was a lovely old woman, a real salt of the earth type and not the kind to believe in the paranormal. One day she came round to our house quite shaken, when we asked her what was up, She told us that she had seen the prowler. The night before she was looking over Attercliffe looking towards the Steel Works when she saw a figure "jumping" across the roof tops. At first she thought it was a thief running away from the police but then she noticed he was jumping huge distances, sometimes twenty to thirty foot, this scared her. This lasted about five minutes until she watched him walk down the side of a pub's wall and into the scrap yard. I have no reason to doubt her, and she certainly wasn't one for telling lies." My investigation then lead me to "check out" the witnesses, the records showed that they lived on Westbury Street at different times, and therefore a chance they didn't know each other, I had asked and both denied knowledge of each other. The records also showed that the 2nd witness did live near Tinsley Park Road. I checked the local papers but nothing was ever reported, the only interesting fact I did find was the high rate of strange deaths in Attercliffe. Many people died in very strange circumstances, some were found with their necks broken, stabbed to death in their caravans, very gruesome indeed but I very much doubt it had anything to do with Spring Heeled Jack. I decided to ask the witnesses what had happened to the prowler? Both told the following story, "One night, the police had followed him from Woodburn Road across the rooftops, as usual he was laughing and dancing, goading the police. Two coppers went after him across the roofs but he ran down the side of the buildings on Arris Street. He then went into the yard of Dexel Tyres (still standing) and that is where the police surrounded him in the back room. The police got the order to get him, then the prowler disappeared. There was no trace of him at all. We never saw him again. Sgt Trevor Basendale, told us never to mention it to anyone, which we haven't up to now and we now know he transferred to a different station." As quickly as he appeared, the legend of Spring Heeled Jack disappeared again, will he be back in another 100 years time? Is he a fantasy figure running through our folklore like fairies and elves? Is he an old wife's tale or merely a manifestation of the Universal Prankster? References: 1 UFO Mysteries by Boar and Blundell; they try to say he was an alien stuck on earth, their reasoning; look at the comparisons between our astronauts on the moon i.e. weightlessness and Jack's leaps, did he have anti-gravity boots? I don't think so. 2 "Veteran" Ufologist, the late Arthur Tomlinson, during his lecture on the paranormal. Sheffield August 1996 Do you want to follow in the footsteps of Most Haunted and go on a real ghost hunt at one of 120 haunted location visit Fright Nights - UK’s ghost hunting specialists |
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