Never Sit in This Chair - The Chilling Legend of Thomas Busby
They say if you sit in the Busby’s Stoop Chair, you’ll die — but why is this cursed chair considered one of the most haunted objects in the world? In this video, we take a look at the terrifying legend behind the Busby's chair, a piece of haunted history that’s been blamed for multiple strange deaths. The story begins in the 1700s with a murder, a hanging, and a dying curse. But it didn’t stop there.
#horrorstories #ghoststories #paranormal #paranormalactivity #hauntedhistory #ghosts #scary #scaryvideos #documentary #freedocumentary #hauntedchair
They say if you sit in the Busby’s Stoop Chair, you’ll die — but why is this cursed chair considered one of the most haunted objects in the world? In this video, we take a look at the terrifying legend behind the Busby's chair, a piece of haunted history that’s been blamed for multiple strange deaths. The story begins in the 1700s with a murder, a hanging, and a dying curse. But it didn’t stop there.
#horrorstories #ghoststories #paranormal #paranormalactivity #hauntedhistory #ghosts #scary #scaryvideos #documentary #freedocumentary #hauntedchair
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00:00In the quiet countryside of North Yorkshire, England, there's a dark story buried in time.
00:06It begins in the summer of 1702, with a man named Thomas Busby, someone not many people
00:13would have trusted, even in his own day. He was known as a drunk, a thief, and a violent man
00:19with
00:19a short fuse. But what happened that year would leave behind a chilling legacy, a curse tied not
00:26to a person or a place, but to a chair. Thomas Busby lived near the village of Sandhutton,
00:33just outside of Thirsk. He was married to a woman named Elizabeth, whose father, Daniel Awadie,
00:40also had a reputation for crime. Awadie had bought a property called Donati Hall, a quiet farm with a
00:48hidden room and a secret passageway that led to a cellar. It was said he built it that way on
00:54purpose,
00:55to support illegal activity. Busby and Awadie ran coin counterfeiting operations,
01:01and were involved in other shady dealings. But even with their shared criminal history,
01:07things between them weren't easy. Some believed Awadie disapproved of Busby marrying his daughter.
01:13Others said the two fought often over their illegal business. What we do know is that one day,
01:20the tension boiled over. It happened at Busby's small inn near Sandhutton, which was about three
01:26miles from Donati Hall. One night, Busby came home in a drunken rage. When he walked in, he found Awadie
01:34sitting in what Busby considered his favorite chair. That small moment sparked an argument, loud, angry,
01:40and possibly violent. Awadie reportedly threatened to take Elizabeth back with him. But Busby seemed to
01:46focus more on the fact that Awadie was in his chair. The fight ended with Awadie being pushed out of
01:51it.
01:53But Busby didn't calm down. Later that same night, still drunk and furious, he left his inn,
02:00walked the distance to Donati Hall, and killed Daniel Awadie using a hammer.
02:05Afterward, he tried to hide the body in the woods nearby. But Awadie's disappearance didn't go
02:10unnoticed. A search was launched, the body was found, and Busby was quickly arrested.
02:16That summer, at the York Assizes, Thomas Busby stood trial for murder. He was found guilty and
02:23sentenced to death. But this would not be a simple hanging. In those days, some executions were made into
02:30warnings for others. Busby was to be gibbeted, a grim punishment where his body would be dipped in tar
02:36and left in an iron cage. That cage was then displayed at a crossroads near his inn, left there
02:43for all to see. This is where the legend begins to shift from true crime into something darker.
02:49There are two main versions of what happened next. In one, Busby was given a final request before his
02:58execution. He asked for one last drink at his favorite pub, in his favorite chair. When he
03:04finished, and the guards came to take him away, Busby is said to have shouted a curse. That anyone
03:10who sat in that chair after him would die. In the other version, he was already on his way to
03:16be hanged
03:16when he screamed the curse out loud, full of hate and defiance. Either way, from that moment on,
03:22that ordinary oak chair was no longer just a piece of furniture. It became a cursed object. One that
03:29some believe has claimed dozens of lives. But in this part of the story, the death of Daniel Awadie
03:35and the execution of Thomas Busby, are not just the start of a ghost story. They are real events, recorded
03:43in the court and the execution practices of the early 18th century. What came next, how a simple wooden
03:51chair would become a symbol of death and misfortune, would take many more years to unfold. And so the
03:59chair remained, inside the Busby Stoop Inn, waiting, watching. Its curse, if real, had only just begun.
04:09Not long after Thomas Busby's execution in the summer of 1702, whispers began to spread in the small
04:16villages near Sand Hutton. The locals had always been wary of Busby. He was no stranger to crime,
04:22drinking or violence. But something about the way he died unsettled people. His body, coated in tar and
04:29suspended in a cage at the busy crossroads, didn't just serve as a warning. It became a landmark of fear.
04:35And not long after, strange stories began to surface. Travelers passing through the crossroads
04:42claimed to feel cold gusts of air, even on calm summer days. Some said they saw a figure in the
04:49shadows, hanging just where Busby's cage had been, swaying though there was no wind. Others described
04:56the uneasy feeling of being watched, especially after dark. These accounts started to grow with time,
05:03and many believed Busby's spirit never left that place, or his beloved inn across the road.
05:10The inn itself, which would later become known as the Busby Stoop Inn, developed a reputation that
05:17went beyond bad luck. Customers reported hearing footsteps on empty staircases and chairs dragging
05:24across the floor when no one was in the room. Staff complained of flickering lights, cold spots,
05:30and the sudden sound of muttering voices coming from the cellar. But it wasn't just the atmosphere.
05:37It was the chair, Busby's old oak chair, that really began to terrify people.
05:44The first real tale of death linked to the chair didn't come until many years after Busby's hanging.
05:50In the late 1800s, a traveling chimney sweep stopped at the inn for drinks.
05:55He was in high spirits, laughing loudly and joking with locals.
06:00That night, he took a seat near the fire, right in the chair that had once belonged to Thomas Busby.
06:07The next morning, his lifeless body was discovered hanging from a wooden post,
06:12not far from where Busby had once been displayed in the gibbet.
06:15The police believed he took his own life for foul play, but locals pointed to something else, the chair.
06:21People said no one should have sat in it. Not after what Busby had said before his death.
06:26This death wasn't written about much at the time, but among villagers, it was passed down like a warning.
06:33And over the next decades, more tales followed. Quiet rumors of misfortune, illness, and sudden death,
06:40all tied to those who had dared to sit in the chair. By the time the 20th century rolled in,
06:46the Busby Stoop Inn had become a place of curiosity. Soldiers and travelers passing through Yorkshire
06:52heard about the cursed chair and dared each other to sit in it. Some laughed it off. Others didn't return
07:00home.
07:01During the Second World War, the inn became a favorite spot for Canadian airmen stationed at Skipton-on-Swale,
07:07a nearby airbase. They came for drinks, stories, and the sense of camaraderie.
07:13But a few of them sat in the chair, and according to those who knew them, they never came back
07:19from their bombing missions.
07:20One by one, their names disappeared from the base. The stories were quiet at first, just murmurs among the staff.
07:27But when more deaths followed, the chair stopped being a joke. Locals started to avoid it altogether.
07:33The pub owner even warned people not to touch it. By the end of the war, the legend of the
07:40cursed chair
07:41was no longer just local folklore. It had become something darker. A quiet fear, passed through
07:48generations. Something that didn't make headlines, but lived in the uneasy stares of those who knew the
07:54stories. The ghost of Thomas Busby, they believed, hadn't left. His chair was still his, and anyone who
08:03forgot that paid the price. As the 20th century progressed, the stories surrounding Thomas Busby's
08:09chair only grew more chilling. By the early 1970s, the Busby Stoop Inn had become more than just a local
08:16pub.
08:17It was a place that carried a deep unease. The inn's reputation as a haunted location was no longer
08:24just whispered in corners. People came specifically to see the chair. Some came with genuine curiosity,
08:31others with a sense of challenge. But almost every time someone sat in it, something terrible seemed to
08:37follow. The Royal Air Force veterans who had survived the war began speaking more openly about the airmen
08:44who had sat in the chair and never returned. Those accounts, told in quiet conversations over pints,
08:52had never been written down in official reports. But among those who remembered, the connection was
08:58too strong to ignore. One of the most infamous incidents occurred in the late 1970s, when two bricklayers
09:05stopped in at the Busby Stoop Inn for lunch. The story goes that one of them sat in the old
09:12chair and
09:12laughed about the curse. That afternoon, after returning to their work site, the man who had sat
09:19in the chair fell from a roof and died on impact. His co-worker survived and was reportedly so shaken
09:26that he refused to ever speak publicly about what happened again. Soon after, a delivery driver making
09:33his rounds took a seat in the chair while waiting for the pub's staff to finish unloading supplies.
09:39That same evening, his truck veered off the road and struck a tree. He died at the scene. Locals were
09:46no longer surprised. Horrified, yes, but not surprised. The pub landlord at the time began
09:52keeping a private list of accidents and deaths he believed were linked to the chair. According to his
09:57handwritten notes, there were at least six people who had sat in the chair between 1970 and 1978 and died
10:05within days. Some in car crashes, others by falling, and one from a sudden heart attack hours later.
10:12None of them had been ill or in danger beforehand. By the late 1970s, the inn's staff had become
10:20increasingly uncomfortable. Some refused to go near the chair altogether. Others warned customers,
10:27often pleading with them not to sit in it. Still, the curse acted like a magnet, especially for thrill
10:34seekers, skeptics, and tourists drawn to the story of a haunted object tied to a centuries-old execution.
10:42The final turning point came in 1978, when a group of Royal Air Force engineers stopped in for drinks.
10:49One of them, a young man in his 20s, sat in the chair while joking about the story.
10:56That same evening, his car left the road during a routine drive back to base.
11:00He died instantly. His commanding officer, who later heard about the chair, ordered his men never to
11:09return to the Busby Stoop Inn. That was the last straw. The landlord, deeply disturbed by the growing
11:16number of deaths, took action. He contacted the Thirsk Museum in North Yorkshire and asked them to take
11:22the chair. But he made one unusual request. It had to be displayed out of reach, so no one could
11:28ever
11:28sit in it again. When the museum staff arrived, they collected the chair and transported it to their
11:34facility. In a quiet room, with low lighting and wooden beams, the chair was hung high on a wall,
11:40far above anyone's reach. A plaque was placed beneath it, telling the story of Thomas Busby and the curse
11:47that followed his final words. Since the chair was removed from the inn in 1978, no further deaths
11:54had been linked to it. The Busby Stoop Inn eventually closed its doors, but the legend remains, and the
12:01chair still hangs in the Thirsk Museum to this day. A silent warning to anyone who doubts the grip of
12:06the
12:06past. Even decades after being removed from the Busby Stoop Inn, the chair linked to Thomas Busby's
12:13execution continues to stir fear and fascination. At the Thirsk Museum, where it remains on display,
12:21staff members handle the artifact with extreme caution. They refuse to touch the chair directly,
12:27using gloves and ropes if it ever needs to be repositioned. It has not been sat in since it was
12:34suspended from the wall in the year 1978. Museum workers have reported strange incidents in the room
12:41where the chair is kept. Lights flicker for no reason. Cold spots have been felt near the display
12:47even during summer months. Security systems have occasionally triggered overnight with no sign of
12:52intruders. Visitors have claimed to feel dizzy or uneasy while standing beneath the chair. Some even
12:58refuse to enter the room once they learn of its history. The museum has never authorized anyone to test
13:04the chair's curse. Paranormal investigators have asked to study it or sit in it for research purposes,
13:10but every request has been denied. The curators say the risk, no matter how unlikely it may seem,
13:16is not worth taking. The chair remains out of reach, bolted high to prevent any accidental contact.
13:24Over the years, several documentaries and television programs have featured Busby's chair.
13:30Its reputation has spread beyond Yorkshire, making it one of the most infamous haunted objects in Britain.
13:37It is often compared to other cursed artifacts, like the Hope Diamond or the so-called Dybbuk Box.
13:44But unlike those, Busby's chair has a confirmed and traceable history that spans over three centuries.
13:51From a documented execution in the year 1700 to a string of modern-day deaths,
13:58local historians continue to debate whether Thomas Busby actually cursed the chair, or whether the
14:04legend grew over time from a mix of tragedy and coincidence. Some believe the story may have been
14:09exaggerated to entertain pub visitors. Others point to the unusually high number of fatal accidents tied to
14:16one specific piece of furniture as evidence that something darker is at work. Despite modern skepticism,
14:22the fear surrounding the chair is real. It has inspired short films, horror stories,
14:28and even fictional versions and novels. Yet the true object, wooden, worn, and unremarkable in
14:34appearance, sits quietly above the museum floor. It does not move. It does not make a sound.
14:42But its presence is heavy. In the years since it was removed from public use, no further deaths have
14:48been associated with the chair. Still, the museum has no plans to ever let it be used again. For them,
14:54the risk is settled. The curse, whether real or not, is no longer worth challenging.
15:02Thomas Busby was hanged more than 300 years ago, but the story of his final words,
15:08his infamous chair, and the deaths that followed, continues to haunt England's folklore. Visitors still
15:16come to Thirsk to see the cursed object for themselves, standing beneath it, looking up,
15:21and wondering just how far a man's dying words can reach.
15:24Thirsk to see the truth.
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