- Welcome To The Ghost City Of England -

DERBY'S location, almost in the centre of the country, has led to its great importance for almost 2,000 years, and also to its great prosperity. Lying where highland meets lowland, at the lowest crossing point of the River Trent and its contributory the Derwent, at the start of the Midlands plain and the end of the barren hills of the north, it has always been a crossing of the ways. Many people have passed through Derby on their way elsewhere others have stayed. Some went on to greater things; others were dispatched whence they came.

Derby was the scene of the last hanging, drawing and quartering to be carried out in England, the result of the last rebellion against the Crown to take place in England. At one time or another there were five prisons in Derby - and a public house for every 36 people, no wonder there was a need for so many prisons.

Derby also witnessed the last pressing to death, or the sentence of penance, which took place at the time of King Charles 11 in 1665. The only peer of the realm to be hanged for murder was Lawrence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers. For 126 years, the De Ferrers family were Earls of Derby. Lawrence Shirley was also the first man in England to be hanged by the 'new drop' instead of the old system of the condemned standing on a cart with a noose round his or hers neck.

Mary, Queen of Scots, on her way to be executed at Fotheringhay Castle, slept in Derby; the hopes and aspirations of Bonnie Prince Charlie foundered here; Florence Nightingale went on from Derby Railway Station to world fame.

To wonder then - with Derby's long and illustrious history - that there are so many souls still lingering here. I strongly believe that ghosts, spirits and hauntings can play a very real part in telling the story of an historic city like Derby. Many of the hauntings and the sightings within the city have been influenced by the events which have happened here, at Derby, truly the crossroads of history.

People say that ghosts do not know that they are dead, and that in the trauma just before death, the energy expelled or expounded is for some reason absorbed into the building -the stonework, the woodwork - and for some reason, at certain times the events immediately prior to their death can be recalled or replayed, just as today the button on a video recorder can be switched to play and, behold, we can watch someone long dead appear on a screen.
uildings, of course, change, and when a ghost is reported to be 'legless' it is often because the floor became higher; if they are headless, unless, of course, their head is seen tucked under their arm, it is because the ceiling is now lower than at the time of their death. Many people have seen ghosts 'walk through the walls' - are they really going through the wall or was there a door there? Has it now been bricked up and plastered over and wall paper put over it? Is the ghost simply going through a door as it once knew it?