A mystery and a lonely place ........ the pond that was Sally's Hole

Few places in the township have attracted a mix of fascination and fear as Sally’s Hole.

 Throughout the early 19th century parents frightened their children with the story of Sally who had drowned in the pond.

 It was situated along the old road and the place even now has something sinister about it.*

I last walked past it in the winter of 2009. In the distance rooks swooped back and forth, around their nest. Nothing quite prepares you for one of these. High up in the bare branches they seem as natural as part of the tree as the branches themselves. But it was Sally’s Hole that we had come to see.

Today it is easy to miss, having been filled in at the end of the 1960s. It is just a hollow depression surrounded by trees just at the start of the lane. And yet arrive at a certain point in the day, perhaps in the later afternoon in February with the light fading fast and it becomes quite eerie.

The popular myth is that Sally drowned there and there is no escaping the sense that all is not quite right. Logically this has more to do with the trees which crowd in obscuring even more the limited light and the fact that there is no one else about. The stillness is overpowering and perhaps for a minute you are prepared to believe anything and everything about this dark overgrown and forgotten place.

But history and the knowledge of the area is a strong weapon in banishing anxiety. Until quite recently the pond was in open land with no trees to overwhelm the place and it was just one of a number of ponds across Turn Moss fed by small streams running from the old Rough Leech Gutter and the Longford Brook.

And here is the perfect explanation for the longevity of the story. For just like today with parental warnings of stranger danger ponds were places that had to be avoided.

And as if to underline this hazard I came across a series of newspaper stories of children who drowned in the much deeper stretches of water created near the old brick works in what was the Isles and now is the area around Longford and Oswald Roads.*

*Manchester Guardian 1920s

Picture; Sally’s Field copied from a 1945 photograph by J Montgomery in 1958, m80104 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council.


*Just after the start off Hawthorne Lane, beyond Ivy Green on your right. A slight depression surrounded by tress.