The Shaw Road ghost.

In 1961, a ghost was seen in the Shaw Road area by numerous people and although seen at different places, times and dates the description of each was very similar. Sheila Smith, of 32 Shaw Road, said at the time,
"I was walking along Shaw road at ten o'clock at night when I saw someone walking towards me. I didn't recognise him, but was about to say good night when suddenly I realised with horror that it wasn't real. It wore dark clothes of forty years ago, and it seemed to have only rudimentary features under something like a trilby hat. It glided towards me under a street lamp, and in a second it disappeared. I know it wasn't a shadow, and it was far too close to me to be imagination. I was absolutely petrified and ran up the road towards two people I could see and then my sister came along and I clutched hold of her all the way home." Her Mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, commented : "I've never seen anyone look as bad as Sheila did that night, but then I know what she felt like because I've seen the same figure myself. It was at about the same spot in the road, again after dark, when I sensed that someone was overtaking me. I glanced over my shoulder as this same black figure, hatted and robed but without feet, glided past me. It went through a hedge and simply disappeared.
First to see the figure was probably Rosemary Booth of 18, Shaw Road, who worked in Hazell's drapery shop near her home. "I was on the riverbank as dusk was turning into night," she said, "when suddenly this thing appeared. It was transparent, and I could see a tree through it. It seemed to float over the grass towards the tree, and when it got there it vanished. I can tell you I daren't go any nearer that tree and I came home very frightened indeed."
Mrs. Edna Dales of 8, Shaw Road, was faced with the apparition in her dark back garden. "I was with our dog, when without a sound this figure, with its collar turned up and a hat on its head, and black all over, floated over the garden fence and across the grass. It went straight through the opposite hedge and vanished into the night. Brandy, our Labrador, would normally have gone for anyone in the garden after dark, but he didn't take the slightest notice."
It was on the same night that Mrs. Dale's daughter Janice saw the ghost near the Multisignals mast. "I was with a friend when I turned round and saw a man just like my Mother told me about afterwards. I told my friend to look, but by the time she did it had gone."
Shaw Road and its environs is built on what was known for many years as Dr. Shaw's Field, and he was apparently a doctor who lived in a large house at the Fenside Road end of the field, and left this country for South Africa 120 years prior to these sightings. But while he was here he was notoriously awkward over a right-of-way that ran through the field from the Witham Bank to Boston West --could it have been Dr Shaw?.....................

Boston Ghosts

Perhaps the best-known of the town's ghost stories is that of the Grey Lady, legend has it that the Grey Lady will appear in front of you if you run round Boston Stump three times while the bells chime for midnight. She is understood to be the ghost of a woman widowed when her husband died shortly after she had given birth to their first child, stricken with grief and wanting the family to be reunited she threw herself off the Stump tower with the baby. But her actions saw her damned and left to live in limbo.

Like the Grey Lady, Sarah Preston is another woman who committed suicide by leaping off the Stump. Legend says that she believed herself responsible for bringing the Black Death to Boston by inviting a sailor to her home while her husband was away.It was he who gave her the Black Death (which is believed to have claimed 400 lives here) which she passed on in the town before taking her own life in guilt. In one version of the ghost story, Sarah is seen to leap from the tower of the church holding a young child, vanishing just before hitting the ground, another variation has Sarah dying of the plague.

A few years ago paranormal investigators spent a night at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Complex and say they discovered a monk-like male figure and a young girl haunting the halls.One photograph taken showed a monk and a male ghost is also said to have rested his hand on one of the group's shoulders. In response to a medium saying 'I think I'm picking up a little girl here', a female's voice clearly said 'yes' said one of the group.Visitors to the site swear they have previously seen a male monk figure walk through walls and across the pool and there have also been reports of mugs in the admin office smashing themselves in the past.

In 2010 a man was driving home between Kirton and Boston, it was about midnight and he saw what he thought was an articulated lorry with no lights at the rear. As he got closer he could see it was the back of a guards railway van. He thought it was on a low loader... but there was no low loader and he pulled out to have a better look... and then he could see it was an old-fashioned steam train pulling several carriages!! As he came toward the street lights, it disappeared! The road he was on (the A16) was originally a railway line, closed in the1960's and made into a road in the 1990's.

Father Michael - or Micky the Monk – is a ghost believed to haunt Blackfriars, Spain Lane site. The site has also been claimed to have been a burial site, while monks' graves were also uncovered on the nearby Boston Grammar School site in recent years. Father Michael is said to walk with a cloak shrouding his head.

The following sent to me by Andy B.
The most convincing Boston ghost story I heard came about 20 years ago when a friend, his wife and another couple were coming home from the quiz night at the Oak Tree (now Malcolm Arms) at Antons Gowt. They came down Tattershall Rd and where there is a right turn for Boston there used to be a little Island in the middle of the road......on that island they saw a figure dressed in a Medieval jesters outfit just stood there......all 4 witnesses say it just stood still and looked at them and as the car turned right it just vanished. Bear in mind the driver was sober and the passengers had very little to drink with it being a quiz night......spooky.

The following sent to me by Rob.
Pilgrim Hospital is said to be home to number of these apparitions. The one that I know about from my time working in and out of the original A/E dept is as follows.
A very kind and helpfull A/E porter called Willie ----- sadly died from an incurable illness. Soon after this several of the nurses who worked nights said that they had seen him still dressed in his brown porters smock this was always in the corridores between the original A/E and the X Ray dept. This put the wind up quite a few of the night staff and if a patient had to go from A/E for an X Ray in the early hours they would ask if one of us (Ambulance Staff) would go with them. Then one day about dinner time the Charge Hand Porter ( a very sensible man) went to the A/E store room for supplies and saw that a person dressed in a porters smock was already in there, he asked him what he was doing, the person turned around and he saw that it was Willie who he had known, he rushed back into the dept in something of a panic and was so shaken up that he was unable to continue at work and had to be taken home by another porter.
I never saw Willie myself but all the people who did were sensible and quite hard nosed people and all were convinced that it was him, so I had no reason to not believed them.