The Curse of Peg O’ Nell - Clitheroe, Bungerley Bridge – River Ribble

The Curse of Peg O’ Nell – The Haunted River of Clitheroe

Bungerley Bridge, River Ribble, Lancashire

Bungerley Bridge spans the River Ribble near Clitheroe—a peaceful enough spot by day, but one wrapped in legend and unease as soon as night falls. Before the bridge was built, there was only a perilous ford with slippery stepping stones, and it’s here that one of Lancashire’s darkest hauntings took root.

Back in the 1860s, folklorists John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson wrote of this place in Lancashire Folk-Lore, describing a “malevolent sprite” that haunted the crossing. No one knew where it came from, or even what to call it—but locals said the spirit demanded a life every seven years to appease the fury of the River Ribble itself.

Over time, that nameless entity gained a story and a name: Peg O’ Nell, or sometimes Peggy of the Well.

Her presence is tied to an old well in the grounds of nearby Waddow Hall, beside which stands a battered, headless stone statue that still causes unease today. The statue is thought to have been a Catholic relic cast out of the house after the Reformation, its decapitation blamed on either accident or fear. For generations, locals claimed it had to be placed by the well to keep Peggy’s spirit at bay.

As the legend tells, Peg was once a servant girl at Waddow Hall. One freezing winter’s night, she was ordered to fetch water from the well—or, in some versions, from the river itself. Terrified of slipping on the ice, she begged to be spared. Her mistress cruelly replied, “Get along with you—and may you break your neck indeed!”

Peggy went. She never came back.

Whether she slipped, broke her neck, or drowned in the icy Ribble, no one knows for sure. But from that night on, Waddow Hall seemed cursed. Every tragedy, every illness, every unexplained death in the district was laid at the feet of Peg O’ Nell.

By the late 1800s, her story had grown darker still. Locals believed that every seven years, on a night known only as Peg’s Night, a life must be claimed by the river. To prevent human deaths, villagers would drown a small animal—often a dog or lamb—as an offering to keep her satisfied. If no sacrifice was made, it was said that the Ribble would take a person before dawn.

One chilling story tells of a young man who, warned not to cross the ford on Peg’s Night, laughed off the superstition. He rode into the water at dusk. Moments later, a sudden rush of current swept both horse and rider away. Neither was ever seen alive again.

Even the statue has a tale of its own. When Waddow Hall was owned by a devout Puritan woman, she called for a preacher to exorcise her son, believing the boy tormented by Peggy’s ghost. On his way to the hall, the preacher was found nearly drowned in the river. Convinced that Peg was behind it, the mistress seized an axe, ran into the garden, and—finding the statue standing near the spring—brought it down with a single blow, severing its head.

But the haunting never stopped.

Today, Bungerley Bridge is still said to be a place of unease. On misty nights, people claim to see a pale figure standing near the riverbank or by the old statue—dripping wet, silent, and watching.

They call her Peg O’ Nell, and it’s said that every seven years, the Ribble still hungers.

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