Spooky stories from central Manchester

At the junction of King’s Street with Cross Street is Lloyds Bank which sits on the site of Doctor Charles White's house from the eighteenth century. White was one of the main people behind the establishment of the first proper Infirmary in Manchester. According to one story (there seem many) Hannah Beswick was terrified of appearing dead and being buried alive.

Hannah BeswickApparently this had nearly happened to her brother who’d appeared dead but woken up in the coffin at his funeral service and thus avoided being buried alive – can you imagine the shock of the mourners and the vicar when they heard noises in coming from the coffin. In exchange for making sure she was properly gone when she appeared to have died, she promised to leave a substantial bequest to the distinguished Doctor Charles White to help with his Manchester Infirmary.

So when she died she was pickled, or more correctly embalmed, and placed inside a grandfather clock case in his house and where every morning (or was it every year - stories differ) White or his servants would open the clock face cover and peer in at the preserved face of Madam Beswick just to make sure she hadn't made a remarkable and unprecedented recovery.

They did this from 1768 to 1837 after which time she went on display in a Manchester Museum for another thirty years which wasn’t perhaps the most polite thing to do with her. She was eventually buried in Harpurhey Cemetary.

Hannah Beswick had lived for many years at Bichen Bower Hall in Hollinwood between Manchester and Oldham and it is said that occasionally her spirit still returns and in her embalmed wraps - a little like an Egyptian mummy - she whirls around the house moaning and wailing. Apparently this also happens around the former house of Dr White in Manchester. Indeed every day people see small children running along King Street shouting 'Mummy, Mummy'. Yes that is a terrible joke.