The Mysterious Growling of Rivington

In the heart of the 1990s, when grunge music ruled the airwaves and dial-up internet was a novelty, there existed a quaint business in Bolton town and their stood a shop as a beacon of commerce amidst the cobbled streets and cozy storefronts. But this tale isn’t about the shop; it’s about the Saturday lad and his band of adventurous mates.
Their destination? The Rivington Terraced Gardens. Rivington, with its rolling hills, ancient woodlands, and reservoirs, was a place where nature and folklore danced a timeless waltz.

here is a report i was sent 10/12/2020,:

Great to see a page like this in our local area Mick!

I look forward to listening to the readings and posts etc to come.

A story I’ll never forget:

My parents own a business in Bolton town, it was during the mid 90’s the Saturday lad at the time and his mates, gathered outside the shop at 5:30pm with all their camping gear and headed up to Rivington to camp around the gardens, if I recall.

Monday morning, when asked how they got on on their first camping trip, he said the 5 of them heard a growling that couldn’t be identified.
It terrified them so much that 5 lads in their early 20s packed up quickly in the middle of the night and fled home.

Kind Regards.

And so, the Saturday lad’s midnight escape remains etched in memory—a blend of fear, wonder, and the inexplicable magic of Rivington’s gardens

The Beast of Winter Hill

Carolan and I knocked on the door and were welcomed in by one of our witnesses and his partner. After a chat and drink of tea, I set up my camera for an interview while we waited for the other witness to turn up.

I asked witness 1 to start at the beginning then he related his part of what he recalled of his event.
He and witness 2, his friend had gone up to winter Hill for a night walk, they pulled up and got out of the van and entered a field through a gate near a fallen down stone wall, crossing over it into another field, on entering that field, witness 2 took a couple of steps and kicked something on the ground, witness 1 then pointed his torch down onto the ground to see what witness 2 had kicked. They were both shocked by what they saw. There was lying on the floor a sheep that had been ripped open at the chest and had its head removed and steam rising from its body where the heat and cold air met. witness 1 at this point raised his torch to look around to see if he could see anything. He then went on to say he thought he saw red eye shine, and something moved swiftly before disappearing, then came a growl that scared them both, at which point witness 1 asked witness 2 if it was a bear, to which witness 1 replied we don’t have bears in this country. At this they both walked shoulder to shoulder back to the gate which witness 2 went through, and witness 1 jumped over the barbed wire fence back onto the lane. They both marched as quick as they could whilst hearing growls circling them one or two seconds from the left and then the next couple of seconds from the right and then left again before locking themselves in the van, then they quickly got to a nearby lane before stopping to get their heads around the situation.
Before setting back home they Googled different animal growls including wolves which didn’t sound like what they heard, then messing about witness 1 said to Google “the sound of a werewolf” and they were both shocked to hear the sound that sounded very close to the growl they had heard in the field.
We then waited for witness 2 to turn up. We chatted some more and when he turned up we then listened to his event of that night, which he related to us in a manner of nervousness and at one point his hands were sweating from him feeling anxious about going through what had happened on the moors of Winter Hill that night. He also said he would not go up there again on his own at night again.
After the interview witness 1 took us to the spot of the growls and the sheep. As he ran through the event I filmed and we walked around the inner wall of the field, we then came across another sheep similar to the first, this one with the head removed and the skull wedged into the wall, and a vertebrate piece placed on top. At this spot we came across what looked like a paw print with three pads.
We all went up on Saturday 31st October to see if anything would happen but didn’t see anything, we also placed a trail cam up in the field. We didn’t capture any footage.
Carolan and myself went up on Sunday to have another look round and found something we had missed at the first sheep we came across where the witnesses heard the growls. On top of the wall were two stone wall toppers leaning against one another in a pyramid shape with two vertebrates placed in the middle.
We shall be making regular outings up there to see if there are any more strange events happening over the coming months.

Account four on video 16:20 mins in.  

Scary experience in Roddlesworth

 Hi Mick, I'm in to wild camping and was taking some photos up Roddlesworth woods and these strange shape where in the photos.it was 1:30 in the morning and I was on the way to the well house up there.

To be honest there has been some strange noises up there.the week before I camped at back of the well house and we heard what sounded like iron gates being screeched shut down near the well house.do you think my camera has caught anything?. I went up there to Roddlesworth on Saturday night again with my friend who had a speaker with him. we both had a strange feeling around the well house and on the track on the way up to it was like a we where surrounded by something like we where smothered.we could definitely feel the energy around the place. I will have a look through my pictures and send the original.we are planning a camp around there again with  the guy that was with me on camp when we heard the iron gates closing so be good to meet you and give you our findings and sightings.thanks for getting back to me have a good day.

The Lancaster Raptor

 Hey Mick, I'm a 16 year old currently living in the North West of England, and I had an encounter with a creature that was so strange that it resembled a dinosaur.

The encounter happened back in December of 2019 when I was with a group of friends in the small village of Bolton le sands. We all met one day in the hopes of building a Bushcraft shelter, like the ones you see all over YouTube. One of my friends at the time called James, said that he knew a spot that was isolated and hidden, everything that we could have hoped for. So, we all agreed to follow him to the unknown location. After about twenty minutes of walking through farmers fields and thin paths, we were met with a barbed wired metal fence, and to the left of that on a tree, there was a sign that said 'private' obviously being young kids, we ignored the sign and carefully climbed over the metal fence. After we all successfully got over, we looked around for a brief minute to observe the creepy yet somewhat beautiful forest. it was so creepy that some of the trees even looked like tortured souls with faces. maybe we were all just being paranoid, but we all got a similar feeling that we were being watched. After about five minutes of walking through the dense woodland, one of my friends said that he had seen movement in the distance. He pointed forward, and to all our shock, there in plain sight, we laid eyes on the strangest, most obscure creature we had ever seen. It looked like it belonged in a science fiction movie. the best way I could describe the beast, is that it looked like the raptors from the jurassic park movies. every single one of us stood in panic, as we watched it quickly run into neighbouring tree line. I counted down from five to one, and we all ran backwards towards the fence, and climbed over with sheer fear, as if the creature was chasing after us. We ran, with no stopping all the way back to my house. We sat down in my living room, and discussed what we had seen. we all agreed at the time that the creature looked like some sort of dinosaur.

Nowadays, none of those friends believe or even take recognition of the encounter, and all put it down as being natural, possibly a deer of something? I just don't know how they could even mistake that thing for a deer.

Thanks for taking the time to read my encounter Mick. I appreciate your work and how you help bring these topics to light.

Rivington Dogman

It was summer time back in 2014/2015 - I cant be 100% on the year, but it must have been the height of summer as the days were at their longest. The paranormal group had taken members for an open air invest up to the castle ruins - around the ruins, nothing at all was felt or noted so the group set off to walk back through the wooded pathways, turning left as they left the entry/exit to the ruins. Amongst the group, there were two on mobility scooters (who kept getting them stuck in the muddy puddles so requiring the more abled of the group to lift/push/pull them out) and one with enough mobility issues that she would need to walk pretty slowly along the pathways. There were around 10 people in all yet only 2 people (who were way behind everyone else) visually witnessed this creature and a third (who had come back to make sure the two left behind were ok) sensed it but couldn't see anything. As the latter two walked up along the pathway after the house on the corner there, they became aware of someone behind them. Thinking it was a random dog a little way off from it's owner, they moved over and looked behind them to watch them pass and acknowledge the walker. However what was behind them was not your standard dog. It stood at least 6 feet (if not more) high on its back legs, it's coat was quite long and jet black and it had deep red eyes that seemed to glow, sometimes red sometimes a deep orangey colour. The lady with the mobility problems (she was one of the paranormal group leaders and the lady she was walking with was learning the ropes sort of thing so both were very used to being around odd and weird energies and had experienced many 'happenings' over the years), sorry I am trying to give you as much detail as possible - the lady with the mobility issues could hear it panting/breathing as it darted between the trees watching them. When on all fours it was long and still very tall (much bigger than a very well bred german shepherd) and there was a sensation of it stalking them until they were out of the tree cover and back onto the open grassland. At that point, it either ran off or faded away because no matter how hard they looked, they couldn't find it amongst the backdrop of trees. The person that came to see if they were managing to walk their way back, said as he entered the cover of the trees how odd the atmosphere felt there at that time he knew nothing of the experience of the two ladies.

Throughout that walk, the two on the mobility scooters and the group leader walking with them, noticed some smaller (around the 2ft tall mark) beings/animals/shadow creatures that darted across their path and among the trees besides them.