A Ghostly Carriage: The Haunting of Wyle Cop

When Wyle Cop is quiet, listen extra close. Do you hear those hoofbeats? According to local myth, someone certainly did.

One night in 1792, Elizabeth was waiting by the window of The Lion Hotel for her father - its owner - to return from a business trip. She should have been asleep, but when she was in bed she could only lie awake and listen for the sound of his carriage.

She’d already leapt up to peer out the window twice that night, curled around her candle so the light wouldn’t show under the door. Both times, the carriage continued down the hill as fast as the horses could manage (traffic has long been an issue in Shrewsbury!).

She sat upon the edge of her bed, doing her best to keep from biting her nails or taking out her curlers to play with. What else could she do, with so little light? Instead of doing any uncouth fidgeting, she told herself a story.

She dreamt of finding a suitor. Maybe a handsome man in a hansom cab would stop outside of her window – perhaps his horse needed a new shoe before he could carry on. And perhaps he would be so taken with Elizabeth’s charm (maybe he would only speak French!) that he would at once propose marriage, and he would be so decent and right that by the time her father did get home, he’d approve of her new match.

But, oh! Hoofbeats again, at the top of the hill. She jumped up to peer out of the window, hoping for the familiar sight of her father’s carriage.

Instead, it was a great beastly thing... so dark she could hardly make out anything about it. It seemed like it was made of shadow.

Holding her candle close, she leaned a little way out of the window to see if she could brighten the scene below at all. It was certainly not her father – and she didn’t think any handsome men would be riding around in a carriage that gave her goosebumps to look at.

All at once, the carriage towards her, faster than she’d ever seen horses move, only now there were no hoofbeats at all. Why, their hooves no longer were touching the ground!

She was too frightened to move, so could only watch as the carriage rose up to her second-storey before it flew past her, the rush of it all blowing out her candle. In the dark, Elizabeth did the only sensible thing there was left to do: hide under her covers!

No one else saw the carriage that night. Perhaps no one else was awake, or maybe they didn’t look out the window at just the right moment, and thought the sound of the carriage going by was just like any other.

Have you heard the phantom hoofbeats on Wyle Cop? If you haven't, just remember that when things are quiet and just as they should be, to perhaps look up. Shrewsbury may surprise you.