A few sketchy details here me owd butties, a steeple-jack named Robin Archer or George Arthur had been employed to put the weather vane on top of the church spire, all 184 feet of it. Some say he was a Northumbrian mon, others say that he was a simple, lame mon. Sat in the Three Fishes inn later, drinking rum and getting a little market-peart (drunk) and a little big-sorted (big headed) he started bragging about how he put the vane up. A fellow drinker bet him a gallon of ale that he couldna take it off again. Having previously fired arrows off St George’s church and played a drum on top of St Mary’s he accepted the challenge. When he got to the top he waved to the spectators below and over balanced, fell off and plunged to his jeth. He is obviously keen to win his bet as to this day he is often sin climbing up the spire. I think this was possibly the furst ghost story I ever heard as my sister towd me it when I was a young’un. I can still remember nervously hurrying past, occasionally glancing up to see if he was climbing again.
One later story is that of a local electrician, Paul Corsentino, was rewiring the tower. Despite the fact that the room he was in was virtually inaccessible he met with a ghostly figure in the darkness
The Devil, owd Nick himself, is said to race up the spire to check that nobody has dared to sit in his chair on the Stiperstones, he also get’s a mention in the poem “St Alkmond’s Ghost”
Pop in tomorrow if you can when we pop just down the road, oh! and dunna have nightmares.