Devil’s Steps
Stockport, Greater Manchester 1900s
“The girl was said to have lost her sanity after that night, and could be seen dancing at every new moon around a mound at the rectory on Churchgate where she lived.” Stockport Borough Council
If I come across a folklore story that has ‘Devil’ in the title, you know for a fact I’m documenting it in our Archive. The pesky fellow finds himself in so many folklore tales from the North, typically as a ‘community antagonist’ used in cautionary tales in religious circles. This tale takes us back to the early 1900s in Stockport, and is featured in Harry Bernstein's autobiography The Invisible Wall, an account of his life in Stockport 100 years ago.
The steps in question are now named Dutton’s Steps and run next to St. Petersgate Bridge, opposite Turner’s Vaults. Back in the early 1900s, one venue located near these steps was a dance hall, and the story goes that the daughter of a church warden would sneak out at night to attend events at said dance hall. Party on, girl!
Dutton Steps, town centre viewed from Little Underbank going up to the Market Place, image dated 1901-1902 - Stockport Image Archive
Of course, the story can’t be that simple. The church warden found out about his daughter’s nightly, sinful, trips to the dance hall and ordered the local vicar to give her a stern talking to. The vicar scolded her, lecturing that one night, if she kept sneaking out to the dance hall, she would meet the Devil there who would make her dance with him. Sounds like a pretty good time to me.
Dance halls were seen as rather immoral places to go in religious communities, and her mother was so worried that the vicar would be correct in his prediction that she took it upon herself to sew a crucifix into the lining of her daughter’s dress. But the vicar’s stern words, and her mother’s worry, did not stop the girl from going to the dance hall. One night, whilst she was there, she met an extremely handsome man, very attractive, almost too good to resist dancing with. And so she did, out her hand went and he took it. Who was this handsome man? You guessed it! No less than the Devil himself.
Once revealing himself to her, he dragged her over to Dutton’s Steps and was just about to unravel his wings and fly off with her when his hand scraped over the cross sewn into her clothing. Probably burning him, as most depictions say, the Devil was furious. He let go of the girl, stamped his foot in a temper tantrum, and took off by himself.
The girl, having been let go by the Devil, fell back onto the steps, burning her face on the hoof mark left in one of the stairs. The girl was escorted home after this endeavour, supposedly turning completely insane from the event. Her face remained burnt as a reminder of her misstep, and she never truly regained her sanity. The girl, her church warden father and her mother lived across from the Rectory on Churchgate, and apparently the girl could be seen every new moon dancing around the mound at the side of the Rectory.
This mound was a raised lump of earth, about 6ft wide, that children were warned to keep far away from. Legend of the mound was that church members who died from the Plague were buried under there, not the place you’d expect someone to dance around at night… Those who saw the girl dance around the mound believed that she was defying the Devil to return to claim her.
Locals, and visitors, to this area have reported hearing very faint music playing and mysterious footsteps stomping when climbing the Devil’s Steps at midnight.
