I have always found driving in Sheffield to be a joy with its rolling hills and easy roads – that is until I drove out across Stocksbridge bypass in the dark of night.
As Halloween approaches, I figured I would check out some of Sheffield’s spookiest spots, including one of the (apparently) ‘most haunted’ roads in the country.
The creation of the Stocksbridge bypass in the 1980s was initially a welcome development following years of campaigning to remove Transpennine traffic from the congested Sheffield community. But before the road was completed, it had acquired an unwanted reputation as a hot-spot for ‘ghostly activity’, with South Yorkshire Police even getting caught up in the urban legends.
The list of so-called spooky encounters has since been endless, with reports of groups of children playing on sites with banned public access and sightings of ‘ghosts’ after the first fatality occurred within months of the bypass being built.
The bypass was pitch black – the only light coming from the streets below -Credit:Lyra Audl
I am not usually one to fall for spooky stories, particularly on roads; I have been driving transit vans since I was 19 – usually the scariest sight on the road is me. Yet my hour-long stint camped out on the bypass was the closest I have come to being creeped out of my skin.
Starting off, I headed out in my van, aiming to simply drive down the stretch of road, carrying on from the A616. Obviously, a person can only feel so scared when Chappell Roan is blasting from the speakers, so I pulled up next to a creepy-looking shipping container.
The road was fairly quiet considering it was close to 8pm, but with only the lighting from my headlamps, I could hardly see out past the creepy trees. At one point, another car pulled up behind me while I was in the layby and I didn’t feel super safe, so I decided to head off to see if I could drive over Pea Royd Lane, which runs across the bypass, allowing visitors to look over the edge.
I wasn’t too keen on heading down this public footpath alone -Credit:Lyra Auld
This meant taking a back road through Fox Valley, which I am sure is lovely and quaint in daylight but at nighttime looks like the backdrop for a Northern horror movie. The streets and shops were void of any visitors, which only got worse as I headed up a narrow country lane to the bridge.
Just before I reached the bridge, I passed some sort of electrical plant, covered in alarming ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs, which only added space to the growing pit in my stomach.
When I finally reached the bridge, I parked just outside a public footpath, which I think led to a local farm. I say think, because as I whipped out my phone torch to take a little stroll, I started hearing metal clanking.
Thick metal clanking like a pipe cracking over another. There is probably 101 completely reasonable explanations for the sound, but considering I was standing with a field to my left and a road to my right, I sure couldn’t see one.
I drove across the ‘most haunted’ road in Britain -Credit:Lyra Auld
I managed to tough it out for a few more minutes before I heard a faint, warbled sound. It was most likely a fox, but all reason had left me at that point and I shot back into my car – taking off without looking back.
The cherry on the cake was that as I was driving home, my engine warning light came on – blinking red at me, almost in a ‘told-you-so’ way.
Suffice it to say – regardless of whether it was haunted or just that my creaky van needed a fuel top-up and a service – I am in absolutely no hurry to ever drive there again.
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