Page 25 of Murder Most Haunted

Extract from They Do It With Strings podcast

‘The Tin House’: Episode Two

[Sound of shovelling]

Noah: In this section, we dig a bit further into the historical records of the area that surrounds Atherton Hall, our motto being ‘authenticate, don’t titillate’.

In my research at the local land registry office prior to the visit, I was able to discover early records indicating that the abandoned tin mine on the estate was originally opened in the 1700s by the forefathers of Charles Atherton.

The Athertons quickly sought to expand the mine, and there soon followed a flurry of eviction notices for their tenants housed nearby.

In 1850, Lord Charles Atherton constructed an engine house for the mine to lessen the chances of flooding and to further increase production.

This led to further damage to the landscape and issues for the local community, with toxic slag heaps and run-off chemicals such as arsenic, cyanide and sulphides used in the tin-ore separation process entering the water supply.