Review of Jill Armitage's book Haunted Places of Derbyshire, by Julie Bunting
This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in
The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper,
on 2nd January 2006, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.
HAUNTED PLACES OF DERBYSHIRE
by Jill Armitage
Not for nothing has this spooky book been launched at the start of dark
nights and the preferred time for some cosy fireside reading. Jill
Armitage has tracked down old incidents along with more recent
hauntings from one side of Derbyshire to the other, the majority centred
on the Peak District.
Ghost stories are part of many a writer's stock in trade and this author
is very aware that some of her stories will already be known to some of
her readers, but this time there is none of the breathless credulity that
can spoil a good yarn. Recent strange sights and sounds add modern
postscripts to long established hauntings: the spectre captured on a
Polaroid photograph, a ghostly organist playing ethereal music in Ilam
church, blood-curdling screams heard on the moors behind Chatsworth
and even reports of phantoms seen inside the stately home itself.
Jill Armitage sees no need for analysis, leaving the reader to consider
the evidence. She has split her field of research into four areas, plus a
map. An excellent index lists people and places, and many of the
carefully positioned photographs seem to have been taken especially for
the book - making it a pity that the photographer is anonymous.
Haunted Places of Derbyshire is published by
Countryside Books at
£7.99 - and that's only 16p per haunting. A jolly good introduction to
the subject and one to put goose pimples inside someone's Christmas
stocking! In stock locally or to order through bookshops, quoting
ISBN 1-85306-947-7.
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[Created 20 Nov 2005. Last updated 24 Oct 2008 - 11:02 by Rosemary Lockie]