Todmorden, Calderdale 1802–1867

“All of us involved found it very, very eerie and a bit uncomfortable to be there…” - Demian Allen

We’ve covered Todmorden before in the Archive, with the Todmorden UFO story, but they do tell you to ‘dig where you stand’, which made me think that even though Todmorden is my hometown, I only really know about the UFO sighting and not much else.

And so, I present to you, the Todmorden Moss Man! He is not a man made of moss, no. He is, in fact, John Nowell. Born in Springs, above Harley Wood, Todmorden on the 28th September 1802, John was the illegitimate son of Miriam Nowell and William Midgley. At the age of 9, he became a handloom weaver until until the Fieldens (famous for advancing industry in Todmorden) opened their Waterside weaving shed around 1829.

But John had another passion that would earn him the title of ‘Moss Man’. He was taught botany by Edmund Holt, and went on to become an amateur botanist who studied flowering plants, rare plants and alpines. But with no garden of his own, which I’m sure was a terrible fate for a botanist, John began studying moss. Working tirelessly, John ended up discovering a new type of moss in 1836 - the Cinclidium stygium, over at Malham Tarn. He also discovered Atrichum crispum near Rochdale in 1848, and Zygodon gracilis in the same district in 1856.

He formed the the Todmorden Botanical Society with Abraham Stansfield and acted as vice-president of the Society for 15 years.

John died in 1867, leaving six children, publishing The Flora of Todmorden and having a liverwort, nowellia curvifolia, named in his honour. Quite a legacy, and a little whistlestop tour of his entire life.

But why is the Todmorden Moss Man in the Archive? Not very folklore-sounding so far? The Calder Valley Paranormal Society decided to visit the dilapidated cottage that John lived in during his moss-studying years and found some very strange goings-on…

Situated near Harleywood Slack, ‘Dungeon Top’ was the cottage John lived at with his wife Hannah. Pretty badass name for a cottage! The ruins of this house are still there today, and by now is covered in moss itself, and The Calder Valley Paranormal Society took a trip over to see if they could catch anything ghostly within the walls of John’s old home.

Demian Allen reported in an interview with Radio Leeds’ Hidden West Yorkshire that the video footage they took whilst walking in the premises seemed to be manipulated every time they said something negative about the cottage. The video footage, after reviewing it upon returning home, seemed to slow down every time one of the team said something against the cottage. The team hadn’t set anything up so that the footage would slow on its own, and had no clue why it was doing it.

The team also stated that their paranormal equipment would suddenly stop working once they entered the cottage. It would work perfectly fine just outside of the ruins, but stop immediately upon entering. Demian claimed:

“We could not record a lot of stuff in that building, it would not let us.”

Demian states that he’s been inside the ruins on his own a few times, and found it to be a ‘difficult building to work with’ that ‘holds something’. When asked why he thought their equipment might have been malfunctioning in the ruins, Demian claimed that he believed that whatever was in there did not want them to know anything about what dwells in the ruins.

Despite the uncomfortable feelings the group had whilst in the ruins, they are determined to return to John’s home. Will they find more out about who is holding those ruins away from people?!