Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard mclinsmith here. Season seven of Unexplained will
Speaker 1: begin on Friday, July twenty eighth. In the meantime, we
Speaker 1: are revisiting some of our favorite episodes. This week. It's
Speaker 1: the turn of a very mundane and unassuming stretch of
Speaker 1: road to get its place in the spotlight once more.
Speaker 1: The Stocksbridge Bypass was opened in May nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Since then it has earned a reputation as one of
Speaker 1: Britain's most haunted roads. This is why this is Unexplained,
Speaker 1: Season two, episode five, Roads to Nowhere. Tales of haunted
Speaker 1: roads and vanishing hitchhikers are among the more ubiquitous of
Speaker 1: ghost story tropes to be found throughout the world. In
Speaker 1: a classic sense, the notion might bring to mind Washington
Speaker 1: Irving's headless Horsemen from his gothic and satirical masterpiece The
Speaker 1: Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and, although not a ghost in
Speaker 1: the regular sense, ye'd be hard pushed to find a
Speaker 1: more iconic incarnation of the mysterious roadside wanderer than the
Speaker 1: eponymous hitchhiker from HBO's Dark and Trashy anthology series. The
Speaker 1: prevalence of such stories has been clearly aided by the
Speaker 1: growth of the automobile industry and the frequency with which
Speaker 1: people might, as a result, find themselves driving alone through
Speaker 1: eerie nights on deserted roads, miles from familiar surroundings. In
Speaker 1: other words, the perfect environment for a spectral encounter. And
Speaker 1: it is this the basic utility of the humble road,
Speaker 1: or any other thoroughfare for that matter, that for me
Speaker 1: makes it in many ways the most apt location for
Speaker 1: a haunting. Not only is the path a metaphor with
Speaker 1: multiple applications, but also literally it is the pathway's basic
Speaker 1: function to deliver you from one place to another, a
Speaker 1: journey that often involves traveling through the unfamiliar places, rarely
Speaker 1: experienced only glimpsed in passing, and often at speed from
Speaker 1: inside the relative comfort of a moving vehicle. On the
Speaker 1: fifteenth of May two thousand nine, in London, work began
Speaker 1: on a major transport project to construct a high speed
Speaker 1: rail link traveling east and west through the heart of
Speaker 1: the city. In March two thousand thirteen, construction workers tunneling
Speaker 1: deep below the ground found the remains of twenty five
Speaker 1: skeletons in a small five metre wide shaft. The remains
Speaker 1: found to be almost seven hundred years old, were later
Speaker 1: discovered to have been victims of the Black Death, a
Speaker 1: plague that swept through Europe in the fourteenth century. The
Speaker 1: discovery is one of many extraordinary archaeological finds uncovered by
Speaker 1: excavations for the New Line, including a number of similar
Speaker 1: burial sites, with some dating as far back as seven
Speaker 1: thousand BC, as well as the discovery of over ten
Speaker 1: thousand artifacts spanning across thirty different sites throughout the city.
Speaker 1: Not only does the revelation of the burial site bring
Speaker 1: to mind Nigel nils wonderful sci fi serial Quatermas and
Speaker 1: The Pit, but it also serves as a gruesome reminder
Speaker 1: of those that have walked the paths before, and perhaps
Speaker 1: in some ways still do. It certainly begs the question that,
Speaker 1: even when traveling the most seemingly deserted of roads, are
Speaker 1: we ever truly alone? You're listening to explained and I'm
Speaker 1: Richard McLean Smith. The A six one six is a
Speaker 1: road that begins just to the north of the town
Speaker 1: of Newark on Trent in the County of Nottinghamshire in
Speaker 1: the East Midlands, tracing a path northwest through the country.
Speaker 1: The road bends round Sherwood Forest, crossing the border into
Speaker 1: Derbyshire at the town of Creswell, before disappearing into the
Speaker 1: aortic concrete vortex of the M one motorway, and then,
Speaker 1: as if by some mysterious process of refractive urban planning,
Speaker 1: it appears again some fifty miles further up, now in Yorkshire,
Speaker 1: sprouting westward from junction thirty five, just above the city
Speaker 1: of Sheffield. Prior to nineteen eighty eight, the road continued
Speaker 1: on through the town of Stocksbridge at the northern fringe
Speaker 1: of the Peak District, before eventually coming to an end
Speaker 1: at the city of Huddersfield. In nineteen eighty seven, however,
Speaker 1: building began on a small stretch of the road that
Speaker 1: would later become known as the Stocksbridge Bypaths, a stretch
Speaker 1: of road now generally regarded as one of the most
Speaker 1: haunted in the whole of the UK. The years since
Speaker 1: the construction of the bypass have seen a highly unusual
Speaker 1: amount of strange sightings and sounds that remain to this
Speaker 1: day unexplained. It began on a warm September evening in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, when two security guards, Stephen Brooks and
Speaker 1: David Golthorpe were patrolling the building site of the unfinished bypass.
Speaker 1: The men employed by the reputable, rather un based firm
Speaker 1: Constant Securities, were both well experienced and would often work
Speaker 1: the night shift together. Just to the south of the
Speaker 1: bypass lay the white, low rise hangars and dusty roads
Speaker 1: of the Stocksbridge Steelworks, and to the north, stretching for
Speaker 1: miles nothing but open fields and farmland. It is hard
Speaker 1: to resist the strange energy of such places. The concrete
Speaker 1: byway separate from the town but not fully removed, forming
Speaker 1: an unnatural threshold between the urban and the pastoral. It
Speaker 1: is in such locations we often find those most peculiar
Speaker 1: of places, the siding unfrequented, almost forbidden, pockets of land
Speaker 1: where wild flowers and grass compete with the cast off
Speaker 1: detritus of modern life. Running almost parallel to the road
Speaker 1: was the usual chain of electricity pylonsly metal arms and
Speaker 1: drooping cables, just visible in the moonlight as they stretched
Speaker 1: off towards the dark moors of the Peak District. Cruising
Speaker 1: round the site in their van. On the night of
Speaker 1: Tuesday the eighth, Stephen and David were nearing the newly
Speaker 1: constructed Perroyd Bridge when they spotted something peculiar. It was
Speaker 1: Stephen who noticed it first, some sort of movement at
Speaker 1: the base of a pylon near to the approach road
Speaker 1: to the bridge. As they got closer, Stephen couldn't quite
Speaker 1: believe what he was seeing. The movement appeared to be
Speaker 1: a group of young children playing and dancing at the
Speaker 1: base of the pylon. It was odd, to say the least.
Speaker 1: Not only had it gone past midnight, but there were
Speaker 1: no houses anywhere nearby. And then David noticed something strange
Speaker 1: about the children's clothes, how old fashioned they were. But
Speaker 1: before before they could get a closer look, the children
Speaker 1: completely vanished. The two guards immediately pulled up and got
Speaker 1: out of the van. More than a little unsettled, they
Speaker 1: made their way to where the children had been dancing
Speaker 1: only moments before, but found no footprints or any other
Speaker 1: sign that anyone had been there at all, and all
Speaker 1: around the air was still save for the quiet hum
Speaker 1: of the electricity pylon overhead. Confused, the men returned to
Speaker 1: the van and continued their patrol. But no sooner had
Speaker 1: they reached the bottom of the bridge, Stephen caught sight
Speaker 1: of something else peculiar. Look there, he said, pointing to
Speaker 1: the top of the bridge, What on earth is that?
Speaker 1: David pulled up the van and looked out at the windscreen.
Speaker 1: It appeared to be the silhouette of a man wearing
Speaker 1: a hooded cloak. Together they called out to the man
Speaker 1: to leave the sight, but the figure did not reply
Speaker 1: and remained frozen on the bridge. Assuming they were the
Speaker 1: victims of a practical joke, Stephen got out of the van,
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on the figure, as David drove the
Speaker 1: van to the opposite side of the bridge and switched
Speaker 1: the lights on to full beam. Stephen watched in horror
Speaker 1: from the other side as the light shone straight through
Speaker 1: the body of the figure. But what was more terrifying
Speaker 1: was that whatever it was appeared to be missing its head.
Speaker 1: Moments later, the figure disappeared. Constant security director Mike Lee
Speaker 1: had been sound asleep when he received a panicked call
Speaker 1: at four thirty a m. Requesting he head out immediately
Speaker 1: to the building site. When he arrived, he found both
Speaker 1: Stephen and David waiting for him in a state of
Speaker 1: abject fear. The guards proceeded to describe to Mike what
Speaker 1: they had seen that night, and from the tone of
Speaker 1: their voices, it was clear to Mike that this was
Speaker 1: no joke. Mike knew the men as two down to earth,
Speaker 1: tough South Yorkshire lads, a rugby player and weightlifter, but
Speaker 1: now what he saw in front of him were two
Speaker 1: frightened boys shaking with shock, with Stephen even being reduced
Speaker 1: to tears as he recounted the knight's events. The following afternoon,
Speaker 1: a call came in to nearby deep Car Police station.
Speaker 1: Police Constable Dick Ellis answered the phone to find a
Speaker 1: trembling voice on the other end of the line. It
Speaker 1: was Stephen calling from home, desperate for any kind of help,
Speaker 1: but there was little that p. C. Ellis could do
Speaker 1: other than to suggest that Stephen tried contacting his local church.
Speaker 1: And so it was with some surprise that the next
Speaker 1: day Dick received another phone call about the same matter,
Speaker 1: only this time it was from a priest. He said
Speaker 1: that he was calling on behalf of two men security
Speaker 1: guards from the Stocksbridge Bypass construction site. He explained that
Speaker 1: they had come to see him in a state of
Speaker 1: deep distress. The men had requested an exorcism of the road,
Speaker 1: worried that perhaps a graveyard had been disturbed in the
Speaker 1: construction of it. So convinced of the men's stories, or
Speaker 1: at the very least convinced of their fear, the priest
Speaker 1: asked p. C. Ellis if he could investigate the site
Speaker 1: before he started making any call to the Vatican. The
Speaker 1: following day, on the evening of Friday, September the eleventh,
Speaker 1: p C. Dick Ellith and Special Constable John beat got
Speaker 1: into their regulation fiat panned a patrol car and made
Speaker 1: their way towards the construction site. Before long, they passed
Speaker 1: the quiet and deserted steelworks on the edge of town
Speaker 1: and pulled into the building site just at the foot
Speaker 1: of Pyrot Bridge. A short time later, the men were
Speaker 1: sat with the engine and lights turned off, admiring the
Speaker 1: bright full moon hanging in the sky above them, while
Speaker 1: the radio crackled intermittently in the background. The men agreed
Speaker 1: to give it a few more minutes before calling it
Speaker 1: a night and heading back to the station. But then
Speaker 1: something caught the eye of p. C. Ellis. Turn off
Speaker 1: the radio, he said to John, what is that up
Speaker 1: there on the bridge. John could see it too, some
Speaker 1: sort of shadow moving about in front of a set
Speaker 1: of large pallets John tried flashing the car lights to
Speaker 1: get a better sense of it, but the angle wasn't
Speaker 1: quite right. Stay here, said Dick as he got out
Speaker 1: of the car and made his way over to the
Speaker 1: boxes to investigate. Despite all his experience and training, a
Speaker 1: peculiar feeling had begun to settle over p c. Ellis,
Speaker 1: a feeling of dread that seemed to wrap itself around him,
Speaker 1: tightening as he drew nearer to the pallets. And there
Speaker 1: it was again, the shadow, moving quickly in front of him.
Speaker 1: He called out, but there was no reply. Slowly he
Speaker 1: continued forward until finally he could see it clearly, just
Speaker 1: a loose sheet of polythene partially ripped from the pallet
Speaker 1: and flapping about in the wind. With some relief, Ellis
Speaker 1: returned to the vehicle and relayed the news to John.
Speaker 1: The two men couldn't help but laugh and decided to
Speaker 1: call it a night. But something wasn't quite right. Despite
Speaker 1: uncovering the true cause of the mysterious figure on the bridge,
Speaker 1: Ellis couldn't quite shake that lingering feeling of dread. Now
Speaker 1: back in the car, it seemed to be intensifying. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a fear as such, but more of a sudden
Speaker 1: sense of impending and inevitable doom. Ellis wound down the
Speaker 1: window to get a little air and looked out again
Speaker 1: across the deserted site, and then Ellis noticed something else.
Speaker 1: Despite the warmth of the night, the temperature in the
Speaker 1: car had dropped dramatically, and now Ellis had the distinct,
Speaker 1: unmistakable feeling that he was being watched. But what was
Speaker 1: really terrifying was the dark shape that had just then
Speaker 1: appeared standing right outside his open window. Ellis froze and
Speaker 1: slowly turned his head to face the figure, but when
Speaker 1: he looked out at the window, it had gone. John
Speaker 1: screamed as there now standing on John's side of the
Speaker 1: car was the same shadowy figure, but this time John
Speaker 1: could see it clearly. At first, he saw an old
Speaker 1: fashioned waistcoat and some sort of cravat, and then he
Speaker 1: lifted his eyes for a moment he caught a glimpse
Speaker 1: of a face, its blank eyes staring directly at him,
Speaker 1: before it vanished again. The men leapt immediately from the vehicle,
Speaker 1: convinced someone was messing with them, but as they looked
Speaker 1: frantically around the car, there was little to be seen
Speaker 1: save for the soft yellow lights of nearby Stocksbridge at
Speaker 1: the bright full moon hanging high above them in the sky.
Speaker 1: After a quick search of the surrounding bank side, the pair,
Speaker 1: now deeply rattled, returned to the car to mount a
Speaker 1: proper search of the area. Unable to find anyone, they
Speaker 1: returned to the bottom of the bridge, pulled up the
Speaker 1: car and attempted to radio back to base, only the
Speaker 1: radio wouldn't turn on. Suddenly, two loud bangs rang out
Speaker 1: from the back of the car, as if something was
Speaker 1: pounding on the roof with all its might. John, now shaking,
Speaker 1: turned the ignition, but the engine refused to start. The
Speaker 1: thumps came again. John hurriedly tried the key once more,
Speaker 1: and this time the engine sputtered into life. He shifted
Speaker 1: the car into gear, turned it around, and sped off
Speaker 1: back to the safety of Stocksbridge. The following day, both men,
Speaker 1: despite the obvious potential for ridicule, reluctantly reported their accounts
Speaker 1: of the previous night, with Ellis putting the incident down
Speaker 1: to inexplicable phenomena. Unsurprisingly, the two officers were roundly mocked
Speaker 1: by many of their colleagues, and the story inevitably found
Speaker 1: its way to the local paper, The Sheffield Evening Star. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: as writer Dave Clarke noted having investigated the story years later,
Speaker 1: both the officers stuck rigidly to their story, with Ellis
Speaker 1: maintaining there was definitely something there, but I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: I might have dismissed it as my imagination, but my
Speaker 1: partner saw it and had the identical eerie feeling at
Speaker 1: the same time. It was definitely unnerving, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: a publicity stunt, as was claimed at the time. We
Speaker 1: don't do that sort of thing in the police force.
Speaker 1: As for the security guards, Stephen Brooks and David Goldthorpe
Speaker 1: neither stepped foot on the site again, and one of
Speaker 1: the men is believed to have since moved to Canada,
Speaker 1: partly due to the stress caused by the event. And
Speaker 1: it was only the beginning. Soon many more sightings and
Speaker 1: strange occurrences would come to light. John Holmes, a lorry
Speaker 1: driver from Hillsborough, reported pulling into a depot close to
Speaker 1: the bypass late one evening when he came aware of
Speaker 1: childish voices. After a moment, he realized they were singing,
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of children anywhere. The voices
Speaker 1: seemed to be emanating from a nearby wood. Some time
Speaker 1: later in the autumn of that year, Graham Brooke and
Speaker 1: his fourteen year old son Nigel were running close to
Speaker 1: the bypass construction site when they too saw something strange. Graham,
Speaker 1: a seasoned runner training for the London Marathon, had a
Speaker 1: regular route running from his home in northwest of Sheffield
Speaker 1: up to the village of Wortley, located close to where
Speaker 1: the bypass would eventually be built. After roughly forty five
Speaker 1: minutes of running, with dusk quickly descending, Graham, who was
Speaker 1: a short distance ahead of his son, was approaching a
Speaker 1: layby on his way into the village when he caught
Speaker 1: sight of something unusual. It was the figure of a
Speaker 1: man who appeared to be walking with his back towards
Speaker 1: the oncoming When Nigel finally caught up with his dad,
Speaker 1: he too saw the reckless man wandering along the road.
Speaker 1: The figure, who was no more than fifty yards away,
Speaker 1: appeared to be dressed in some sort of cloak with
Speaker 1: a dark brown hood. They noticed too that it was
Speaker 1: dragging some kind of bag attached to a chain along
Speaker 1: the ground. But what was most peculiar was that the
Speaker 1: legs of the figure looked as though they were sunk
Speaker 1: into the road. As they stared in disbelief, they moved
Speaker 1: along the road to get a look at the man's face.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be covered in soot, with two dark
Speaker 1: sockets where the eyes should be. The figure drew nearer
Speaker 1: and nearer until a huge lorry swept past, right into
Speaker 1: the path of the man. As the lorry continued down
Speaker 1: the road, the figure had completely disappeared. The bypass would
Speaker 1: eventually be opened the following year, on Friday the thirteenth
Speaker 1: in May of nineteen eighty eight, and the sightings would
Speaker 1: keep coming. In July nineteen ninety, Judy Simpson and her
Speaker 1: husband David were driving close to the village of Wartley
Speaker 1: alongside the bypath when they both caught sight of someone
Speaker 1: jogging in the middle of the field to the left
Speaker 1: of the road. But looking closer. Although the jogger had
Speaker 1: the shape of a person, David and Judy realized with
Speaker 1: amusement that the figure appeared to be more like an
Speaker 1: outline of a person. What's more, it was moving about
Speaker 1: three feet above the ground. Suddenly, the figure leaped from
Speaker 1: the field over an embankment up ahead and landed straight
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road. Judy and David both
Speaker 1: braced for an impact, but there was nothing. It was
Speaker 1: as if the figure had melted into the vehicle. The
Speaker 1: car skidded to a halt, clambering out to search for
Speaker 1: whatever it was that they hit, there was nothing to
Speaker 1: be seen. Seven years later, on New Year's Eve, twenty
Speaker 1: eight year old Paul Ford and his wife Jane drove
Speaker 1: to Jane's sisters home in Stocksbridge to attend a party.
Speaker 1: They had just moved on to the bypass when Paul
Speaker 1: looked up to see a dark cloak clad figure standing
Speaker 1: in the road right in front of him. He immediately
Speaker 1: swerved and slammed on the brakes, wrestling with the steering
Speaker 1: wheel as the car came to a judging halt by
Speaker 1: the side of the road. But again, when they looked
Speaker 1: for the figure afterwards, it was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: Since such sightings have been recorded throughout the world, often
Speaker 1: with surprise only similar details, there is the temptation to
Speaker 1: label such events as urban myths, and yet rarely does
Speaker 1: one particular location garner such a collection of similar sightings,
Speaker 1: and over time, a number of suggestions have been put
Speaker 1: forward to explain the strange events. During the Industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: the area surrounding the Stocksbridge Bypass and the A six
Speaker 1: one sixth Road had flourished as a hub of the
Speaker 1: British coal mining industry. Up until the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: It was common for children as young as five years
Speaker 1: old to be sent down the coal pits to work.
Speaker 1: Jobs undertaken by children included pulling the loaded carts along
Speaker 1: the small tunnels of the mine, or, if you were
Speaker 1: really lucky, you might get a job as a trapper,
Speaker 1: opening small doors along the tunnels to let the air in.
Speaker 1: Often trappers would work for up to eighteen hours at
Speaker 1: a time, sat alone in the dark with only the
Speaker 1: flickering light of a solitary candle for company. Naturally, accidents
Speaker 1: and deaths were a regular occurrence. Perhaps as some have suggested,
Speaker 1: one such fatal accident occurred in the Stocksbridge region, giving
Speaker 1: rise to the ghostly apparitions of the laughing and dancing children.
Speaker 1: Another local tale of law details the story of a
Speaker 1: monk who had rejected his monastery and as a result,
Speaker 1: after he passed away, had been buried in unconsecrated ground.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this was the very same ground that had been
Speaker 1: so brutally disturbed by the construction of the bypass. However,
Speaker 1: despite the local fondness for such explanations, no substantial evidence
Speaker 1: has been found to corroborate either of these tantalizing stories,
Speaker 1: and it is merely a coincidence, no doubt that the
Speaker 1: number six one six is considered by many scholars to
Speaker 1: be the original number of the beast. Whatever you believe,
Speaker 1: it is difficult not to at least think upon the
Speaker 1: possible traces and ghostly echoes that we traverse as we
Speaker 1: make our way from A to B to wonder whose
Speaker 1: pasts and whose buried secrets do we callously smother with
Speaker 1: our grit and tarmac. What ancient grounds, once considered consecrated
Speaker 1: are now to be ripped apart by diggers and drills
Speaker 1: loud enough to wake the dead. Many years from now,
Speaker 1: a new generation of planners will come across the remnants
Speaker 1: of an archaic pathway buried deep below the earth, with
Speaker 1: nothing to discern its purpose save for a rusted sign
Speaker 1: buried nearby, bearing a strange, cryptic alphanumeric code that reads
Speaker 1: simply A six one six. And what then if, in
Speaker 1: the words of the illustrious Douglas Adams. It is decided
Speaker 1: one day that the entire planet is to make way
Speaker 1: for a hyperspace bypass. Perhaps future intergalactic travelers will too
Speaker 1: feel that strange shiver as they make their way between
Speaker 1: Venus and Mars, turning to each other to say, I
Speaker 1: heard there were people here once, and sometimes you can
Speaker 1: almost feel them. This episode was written by Richard McClain
Speaker 1: smith Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast created by
Speaker 1: Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
Speaker 1: the music, are also produced by me Richard mc lean
Speaker 1: smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before
Speaker 1: featured on the show, is now available to buy world wide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and
Speaker 1: other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
Speaker 1: your own you'd like to share. You can find out
Speaker 1: more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online
Speaker 1: through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained podcast