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The
Ghost of Ryton Bridge
Can you remember
that feeling of being scared and shivering as you approached the
Ryton roundabout, called by some MURDER ISLAND? Perhaps you felt
more than the fear of today’s busy traffic as you approached the
river Avon, flowing under the old Ryton Bridge.
In
years gone by, before the old bridge was altered and widened, to
take the present four lanes of traffic, just a small bridge
crossed the main London Road as it passed over the river Avon.
On many a dark night travellers on this part of the road
hastened their steps to quickly get away from the old stone
bridge that was forever enveloped with a heavy mist.
Many a Toll Keeper have in years gone by, left this lucrative
post in a state of panic after only spending a few nights living
in the house yards from bridge. Even leaving after paying out
good money at the public auction in Coventry for the rights to
collect the Tolls from all those who used the road. Because of
so many keepers left their posts, the Toll House and gate was
moved away from the bridge towards Coventry.
Why?
It is rumoured
that a ghost haunts Ryton Bridge, seeking the soul of any unwary
traveller that makes the terrible mistake of crossing the bridge
during darkest. Strange noises have been held and lights seen
on many a night, but even more so during the early part of the
month of May each year.
What is known
On
the 2nd May 1734, one Thomas Wildey, a woolcomber,
was hung for the murder of his aunt Susannah Wall and Ann
Shenton her daughter, who at the time of their deaths kept the
White Lion in Smithford Street.
After being hung until nearly dead, his body was placed in an
iron Gibbet on Whitley Common. Here it remained for many years,
a ghastly warning to all who passed by. When it was finally
taken down, the remains where buried as was the custom in the
nearby sand pit.
Time pasted and the remains where uncovered, and carted away
with a load of sand, to be used by the authorities of the
Holyhead Road Trust during 1793-4, in the building of the new
Ryton Bridge which was part of the new London to Holyhead Toll
Road. Thomas’s remains where duly ground up and mixed, then used
in the setting, bedding and jointing of the bridge stonework.
The stonework is still visible today on the Courtyard Hotel [old
Ryton Bridge Hotel] side of the river, over 209 years after it
was first constructed.
Some say he
was wrongly accused and he still waits for his Royal Pardon
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