The Unsettling Reason People Have Refused To Sit In This Chair For 300 Years
In a museum in North Yorkshire, England, a chair hangs ominously from the wall. Like a man hanging from the gallows, this sinister piece of furniture casts a dark shadow across the museum floor. But there’s a terrifying rationale for its current position, and a chilling reason that no one is allowed to sit in it.
Thirsk Museum might not be as well known as the Science and Natural History museums, not least because it’s situated in a small market town 225 miles north of London. Nevertheless, the converted house contains many interesting exhibits that document the history of Thirsk and its inhabitants. But there’s one artefact that particularly stands out.
On the wall of one display area hangs a wooden chair. Indeed, a local pub landlord asked the curator to take it, but under one very strict condition. Moreover, it’s a promise the museum has kept for more than 40 years. No one is permitted to sit in the seat, and for an unnerving reason.
You see, while the chair might look unremarkable, there is a dark and disturbing history to this piece of oak furniture. Indeed, its unsettling story is the very reason the seat is inaccessible to anyone who comes across it. Honoring the landlord’s request, then, the chair hangs in a corner, high up in a recess.
Once, the chair was used by a local man named Thomas Busby, and it has come to be known as the Busby Stoop Chair. Indeed, it’s his dark story that is inextricably linked to the bar room furniture. And it’s a story so sinister that today nobody would dare to sit in the apparently-inauspicious wooden chair.
