Who is old lady haunting our shop? from the Leyland Guardian

The owners of a Leyland stationery store claim their business is being haunted by the ghost of an old lady.

Barton and Angela Atkinson are asking for help in solving the riddle of why their shop, The Print and Stationery Zone on Towngate, is plagued by spooky goings-on.

In the latest incident, which happened last weekend, the businesswomen had given their keys to some workmen who were making repairs to the back of the shop.

But they were so spooked by loud noises from the front of the Towngate store that when they handed the keys back on Sunday they admitted to being 'frightened'.

Bev said: "It is quiet on a Sunday yet the builders said there was a lot of banging coming from the front of the shop. They kept checking, but there was no-one there and they had locked the front door behind them.

"Angela and myself really want to find out what the story of this building is because there have been a lot of unexplainable things happening.

"We had the building extended four years ago and we think all the upheaval must have disturbed something.

"I have been sat in the back office with a customer and seen this lady walk from under the stairs towards the till in the front of the shop.

"I was thinking 'how has that woman got in here?' because we have a chime on the door and when I went to speak to her she wasn't there."

"It's not poltergeist activity, but it is a bit scary because she's so vivid.

"You can smell her violet perfume and she's as plain as day. She's 60 odd, maybe 70 years old, small and wearing an old dress with light grey hair. There are always things happening in the corner of your eye, but there are times when we see her right there in the shop."

According to Bev, the business used to be a Sue Ryder charity shop and they had boxes of books mysteriously moved.

http://www.leyland-guardian.co.uk/leyland/Who-is-old-lady-haunting.4274828.jp

This looks a interesting case, with the history of paranormal events and recent changes to the shop and surrounding land. Should be a good case to do, and fingeres crossed some interesting results...

Here is the latest communication with Bev Barton (The owner of the shop)

The premises are at 86 Towngate, Leyland Lancashire. PR25 2LR

My name is Bev Barton and my business partner is Angela Atkinson.

It all started to happen about four years ago when we were having an extension to the shop at the rear of the premises, when the footings started and there was no disruption to the shop we started smelling a very strong perfume near the front door to the shop. It was only in one place though, if you took a step to your left, right, back or forward the smell was not there anymore.

Then our kettle started to boil on its own. At first we thought it was one or the other of us putting the kettle on, but this gradually got up to the kettle boiling up to ten times a day and we learnt to live with it thinking we had a faulty kettle.

After this had been going on for a number of months the man that lived in the flat upstairs came down one day and in converstation mentioned that his kettle kept boiling on its own day and night, at this point we all got a bit spooked as we had never mentioned anything about our kettle to anyone!

On another occasion our ex-landlord Andrew Dowding was in the shop one evening about 8.30pm doing some work on the computer when the chimes above the door started chiming he ran through to the front door and the chimes where swinging like someone had hit them, he felt for a draft but there was none and the chimes were on an internal door anyway, he left the shop a coulple of minutes later feeling slightly uneasy.

We have also had customers mentioning the smell of perfume near the door. The most disturbing thing for me was when I was sitting at the computer with a customer facing into the shop when a lady aged about 60 - 70 came walking from under the stairs behind the counter across the shop. I jumped up alarming the customer shouting how has she got in here as the counter is at the bottom of the shop and we have a bell on the door so no-one can get in the shop without us seeing or hearing, this lady just walked straight across never looking at us or anything, she was so clear like a real person not misty or anything she was so clear, (it is quite hard to describe all this in writing!!!!!)

On another occasion Angela who is a non believer in anything paranormal, walked into the front shop and came back into the back office looking very pale and shaken she had gone in the shop and in the same vacinity that I had seen the lady she had seen a female figure not as clear and from a completly different time period. The lady she had seen was in black with a white pinni on and Angela said she could not see her face and then all of a sudden she was gone.

The most recent thing to happen was about 2 weeks ago we had painters in painting the back door and mending the security grill on the back door, they came on a Sunday and we had left keys with them. On the Monday morning when they came to drop off the keys the decorators wife said " there was loads of noise coming from the shop and I spent all day going through to the front thinking someone had come in, and checking I had locked the front door.

Since the newspaper article I have spoken to Stuart the financial advisor that rents one of the offices upstairs and we were asking him if he had had any experiences, and he said that things are never in the same place he leaves them.

This shop used to be a Sue Ryder charity shop before we came here, and one of the ladies that used to work in it came into the shop one day and was chatting with Angela, who asked if she knew any history of the building, or if when she had worked there anything unexplained had happened? The lady just said that they used to keep books upstairs (where Stuarts office is) and that they were never where they had originally left them. She also said that if she put them on the right side of the room, the next day they would be on the left!

I hope this is helpful to you, please don't hesitate to ring if you need anything clarifying or need more information

I like this place more and more

I agree with you riffraff , i´m getting to like this place day by day , i think that it will be a great investigation and the area that we have to cover is easy to keep under control so that makes everything alot easier

greetz
phantom

sound very interesting indeed. look forward to catching up with this one

I know this shop very well as i lived in leyland for 32 years, its just across from the jobcentre and tescos, iv been in a couple of times to get some flyers printed for a wireless thing i was doing. really nice lady who owns the shop.
next time im passing i might nip in for a quick chat.
i bet there are a few decent places in leyland to investigate, i was thinking of investigating worden park in a few months if anyones interested or has any good advice.

by the way it sounds like a great investigation you did there, very interesting.

it was a great investigation joe and they have had stuff since happening. it was a fruitful evening and everyone had a good night and the evidence we got was good too.
will be good to get invited back at some point