Yahoo News The labyrinth of disused tunnels near Greater Manchester rumoured to be the scene of devil worship
Rumours surrounding Satanic rituals taking place in an eerie labyrinth of disused tunnels on the edge of Greater Manchester have persisted for years. Standedge tunnels are four interconnected tunnels running parallel through the Pennine Hills between Diggle in Oldham, and Marsden in West Yorkshire.
Constructed from the early to late 19th century, the last to be built was the three mile long twin-track railway tunnel completed in 1894 that is still in use today. The previous two are disused railway tunnels built in 1848 and 1871 - both over three miles long - and there's an earlier, four-mile long canal tunnel that was completed in 1811.
Considered one of the seven wonders of the canal building era, the 1811 tunnel took 16 years to excavate and is Britain's longest, deepest - and one if its oldest - canal tunnels. Constructed using just shovels, picks and explosives - it is an engineering feat thought to have cost at least 50 workers their lives.
All four of the tunnels are interconnected by a network of smaller passageways known as adits, which enabled workers building the later railway tunnels to remove waste materials to boats waiting in the canal tunnel to be transported away.
READ MORE: The lost and abandoned 'ghost villages' around Greater Manchester
Among the remarkable tunnels' features are the brick ventilation shafts that dot the moors above the tunnels, reaching a staggering 512ft.
Over the years, the Standedge railway tunnels have attracted the interest of urban explorers, including Daniel Sims, also known as Bearded Reality on YouTube, (although this is not recommended due to the danger and trespassing involved), Yorkshire Live reports.
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Daniel entered the tunnels from the Diggle end and described the experience as quite 'creepy', with strange noises and large blasts of air from passing trains in the live tunnel being forced through the abandoned tunnels.
"We went pretty much all the way in, or at least three-quarters. We got to see the trains passing us, and saw hidden bits like old workers' sections. The place is creepy and, apart from the trains, is dead silent. And then you hear something and you are like 'what?'
He explained that passing trains cause an intense wave of air about anyone within the abandoned tunnels. "The force itself sucks you in, that's why we had to hold onto the tunnel wall as it's moving at such speed and is quite powerful."
The 'silence', he says, is unnerving. "The silence is one thing but then you hear the winds start to come which is very strange. There was also a section that had water running all the way down which was awesome."
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Back in the 1980s, the tunnels were the subject of rumours concerning occult or 'Satanic' activities. Two headlines in the Huddersfield Examiner on May 31 and June 3, 1980 fuelled fears that black magic rituals had taken place in one of the unused railway tunnels.
The first story, entitled 'Black Magic in the Valley?' detailed how workmen found "two sheep's heads and strange painted symbols" about one and a half miles from the tunnel entrance.
Then, in another story, told the newspaper he had been walking back from the Diggle end with three friends, when they were stopped by children who ran out of the tunnel. Recounting his ordeal, the 24 year old said: "They warned us not to go in as there were men inside who had chased them off."
Dismissing what the children had described, the man said he and his friends continued their journey. "We knew we were trespassing, but we decided to take the chance and we walked about a third of the way through. Then a man wearing an old man's mask ran shrieking towards us and scratched me on the mouth as he ran past and disappeared," he said.
"We were terrified and turned straight around. We never saw the man again and presumed he had gone down one of the side tunnels. We were going to tell the police but thought better of it as we had been trespassing."
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Perhaps one of the most detailed accounts of alleged occult activity in the Standedge tunnels can be found on the Mysterious Britain website. It recounts an alleged exploration of the disused tunnels back in 1980.
The story is from a man who claimed to remember being taken through the tunnels by his dad and his friend when he was just a boy. Travelling deep into the disused tunnels, he said they came across a vaulted room in the centre of the tunnels.
Inscribed on one wall of the room, he claimed they saw "a large painted image of the sun with a demonic face." While on another wall was the image of the moon - "again with sinister features."
Magic symbols on the walls illuminated as they shone their torches around the room, while a large circle was said to have been painted on the floor containing occult symbols. Burnt-out candles were also said to have been placed around its perimeter,
Perhaps the most sinister claim was the alleged discovery of a "headless carcass of a cockerel, still stained with blood," in one corner of the room. Disturbed, they quickly left and carried on through the tunnel until they reached daylight on the other side.
Meanwhile, Bill Armer, a former policeman, later shed light on the dark rumours that Satanic activities might have been taking place in the tunnels. In 2016, Armer told Yorkshire Live: "In the mid 1980s I was policing out of Slaithwaite. In a quiet moment one Sunday a colleague and I borrowed the key from the Marsden signalman, and drove into the closed tunnels to explore.
"There is a point, near midway, where the two closed tunnels are linked by a large open space, which also gives access to the live tunnel. This is a rather imposing space known then to some locals as 'The Cathedral'.
"With the help of a torch, I could see a number of symbols painted in white on the walls of 'The Cathedral' including, in a high position, a pentagram. Certainly someone had gone to quite some trouble to leave these occult symbols, although that in itself does not prove that the space was actually used for rituals."
He continued: "Because we were out of radio contact we could not remain long enough to make a closer examination. At least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it."
We might never know the truth about whether black magic rituals were performed in these tunnels hundreds of feet beneath the Pennines. But it's perhaps no coincidence that the 1960s and 1970s in Britain saw a revival of interest in witchcraft and the occult.
The Manchester Evening News even reported on supposed black magic rituals being performed on Saddleworth Moor around this time. This renewed interest in the occult continued through the 1980s, perhaps fuelled by the US 'Satanic Panic' the same decade, which concerned a large number of unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse.
The phenomenon later spread to other parts of the world, including Britain, and continued to attract a great media interest in the '80s and '90s. As the fear of occult practices reached fever pitch, it famously resulted in Britain's own 'Satanic Panic' in 1990 when six Rochdale families were wrongly accused by social service workers of being involved in the satanic ritual abuse of children.
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