Stott Park Bobbin Mill
Victorian bobbin mill where ghostly workers continue operating dangerous wood-turning machinery, their accidents replaying in phantom form.
Stott Park Bobbin Mill, operational from 1835 to 1971, produced the wooden bobbins essential to Britain’s textile industry. The mill employed local workers who operated dangerous wood-turning lathes, saws, and drilling equipment powered by a waterwheel and later steam. The work was hazardous—rotating machinery could catch clothing or hair, sharp tools could slip, and wood dust caused chronic respiratory disease. Several workers died in machinery accidents, and many more suffered disabling injuries. The mill’s remarkable preservation as a working museum has maintained the original Victorian machinery—and, according to numerous reports, the presence of those who worked it.
The most disturbing paranormal phenomenon at Stott Park is the phantom replay of machinery accidents. In the turning shop, where wooden blanks were shaped on lathes, visitors and staff have witnessed horrifying apparitions of accidents occurring—a worker’s clothing catching in the machinery, the sudden spray of blood, and screams of agony. These visions last only seconds before vanishing, leaving witnesses shaken and the room unnaturally silent. The smell of blood and wood shavings sometimes pervades the area, and cold spots mark the locations where fatal accidents occurred. Former mill workers visiting the site have identified specific apparitions as colleagues who died in the machinery, recognizing their clothing and manner of working.
The waterwheel room and engine house echo with the sounds of the mill in full operation—the rumble of the wheel, the hiss of steam, and the synchronized clatter of belt-driven machinery. Witnesses report seeing shadowy figures moving purposefully through the building, their actions matching the rhythm of work that characterized the mill for over a century. In the areas where children worked sorting bobbins and removing bark from wood, the sounds of young voices and coughing echo through the empty spaces. The mill’s atmosphere becomes oppressively heavy during demonstrations when the original machinery is operated, as if the ghosts recognize the familiar sounds and sensations of their labor. Objects move independently, tools appear in different locations, and the smell of machine oil and fresh-cut wood manifests without explanation. The workers of Stott Park, it seems, remain bound to their dangerous trade, forever turning wood on Victorian lathes in the shadows of the Lake District fell.