Jones' Cafe and Gymnasium

When this was a branch of "Pound Stretcher", a spectre nicknamed "Aggie" used to cause havoc, by shutting doors and closing windows on hot days, and also by turning lights on in the men's toilets. Noises were also heard coming from the unoccupied attic, and footsteps were also heard. Staff had also had stock falling on their heads and found items scattered on the floor when they arrived first thing in the morning.

Update 16/8/21: The cafe replied to my Facebook query; "unfortunately no we don’t have any stories to tell you I’m afraid." On March 13th, 2025 during a follow-up email, Hattie Binks informed me, "My colleague who has a clinic for sports physio has given me a couple things she has experienced. One being that when she is on her own sometimes in the clinic, it sounds like a ball is being bounced on her desk. And when she has been in the studio doing a stretch class, one of the benches popped off the hook that they are hung on but no one had touched it. Another colleague of mine has said that when she was closing up the cafe, she turned a light off, it stayed on and flickered. Turned it on and stayed on normally and then turned it off again and it did the same flickering thing. They had to keep doing it until it eventually turned off."

"The Weird in the Wade" podcast team performed a ghost hunt here and the results were unveiled on in April 2025. While the vigil was quiet, the gym manager said that there had been a few things, but "nothing exciting", like seeing punchbags swaying for no reason, someone being tapped on the shoulder, and thinking that someone had entered the gym but there was no-one there. The cafe also yielded a few tales; an employee who had come into the building at 6 am saw a large dark figure (with "a head of hair") gliding behind a glass pane. Staff would also come in to find coffee piled up, and had experienced cups coming off the machine and ending up on the floor. A knife also vanished after its user had turned away for a brief while. There have also been incidents of the toilet light activating by itself; normally it would turn on via a sensor. Since then, there have been other incidents; a piece of cutlery vanishing never to be found in front of an employee; jars of coffee hurled around and voices calling out people's names (and even mimicking other's voices).

Weird in the Wade

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