BOOKTALKS

In 1702, a dreadful murder took place. Thomas Busby wantonly murdered his father in law, Daniel Awetty, by bludgeoning him to death with a hammer, in a dipute over his daughter Elizabeth, who wanted to leave her drunken husband, the landlord of the crossroads inn, where the Ripon road crosses over the ancient route between Boroughbridge and Topcliffe.

He was obviously too fond of drinking his own ale.

For this calumny, he was tried at York Assizes, hanged at the roadside beside his own inn, and as a further humiliation, and a warning to others not to prejudice the Queen’s Peace, had his body dipped in pitch, and hung from a gibbet in chains at the said crossroads.

That is why the hostelry, much rebuilt, survived until almost the present day, and was named the Busby Stoop Inn.

In 2008, a young ghosthunting enthusiast started an investigation into the psychic phenomena associated with the inn’s tragic history.

He made a film of it, which has subsequently been lost, and has now tried to make the best of a bad job by using his enthusiasms to compile a book about his paranormal investigations, with a co-author who practices as a medium, with the results of further investigations into Thomas Busby, the superstitions associated with the inn, and in particular the chair allegedly cursed by Busby from the gallows, kept in the inn, which would cause the death of anybody foolish enough to sit on it.

The book, Busby and Me, by Wade Radford, is now available.