Pit Ghost: Uncanny story from New Mills.

The inhabitants of New Mills woke on Saturday morning to find they had in their midst what was termed "a real, live, although headless, female ghost."
The story was that two or three of the miners int he small colliery at New Mills, when working during the night, saw the ghost, and heard its blood-curdling screams until they were nearly frightened to death. They declared it lifted up its arms, uttered loud screams, and then vanished into thin air, and that it was the ghost of a woman who is said to have been brutally murdered in the vicinity of the pit very many years ago, her head being severed from her body.
It is further related that soon after the murder the ghost appeared to the workmen who were attending to the engines during the night, but that it was "laid" by a local preacher, and had not appeared since until last week.

Investigations, however, throw a somewhat different light on the affair. The hills around New Mills have for centuries been worked for coal; but the pits have been "set down one by one", until the only concern now working is a small colliery at Ollersett, in a wood just outside New Mills. It is an old pit, which has been closed for many years until about two months ago, when the workmen, some fifty in number, were transferred from the Pingot pit, close by, which was closed. The proprietors are the Ollersett Colliery Company, whose manager is Mr. Jas. Ramsbottom.

Interviewed, Mr. Ramsbottom welcomed the opportunity of giving his version of what he considers "nothing but bosh." "Then there is nothing in it, is there?" "Nothing whatever, and I am surprised anyone should believe such rubbish in these days." Mr. Ramsbottom admitted that two of the men stated they had seen something in the pit, and had heard noises, and this had been construed into a ghost.
"Then they have heard noises?" "Yes, noises had been heard, and there was certainly 'a funny noise' in the shaft, but it was caused by the air current. It was 'a whistling sound,' and no doubt sounded a bit dismal. Sometimes it 'goggled,' but it was nothing whatever but the pump. It was a wet shaft, and when water fell down the inside from one ring to another it set up a funny noise, which echoed through the pit as if someone was talking. 'To say it is anything more is ridiculous,' added the manager. 'I have been there twenty-three years, and have never seen or heard anything but what I have told you, although I have gone through the place hundreds of times, both alone and with company at all hours of the night."

There is no record anywhere, writes our representative, of any woman having been murdered there. But many years ago a demented woman dashed a child's brains out against a tree, and sixty years ago several colliers were suffocated in the mine.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Monday 26th January 1914.