Busby's Stoop Chair

In the Thirsk Museum in North Yorkshire, England, an ordinary-looking oak chair hangs from the ceiling, suspended five feet above the floor where no one can possibly sit in it. This precaution is not architectural whimsy. It is a matter of life and death. For over three centuries, Busby’s Stoop Chair has claimed the lives of those who sit in it, a death toll that some estimates place at over sixty victims. The chair is one of the most thoroughly documented cursed objects in the world, and its current owners take no chances with the lives of visitors.

The Origin of the Curse

The chair’s curse dates to 1702 and a crime of passion in the Yorkshire countryside. Thomas Busby was a coin counterfeiter and petty criminal who lived near the town of Kirby Wiske with his common-law wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s father, Daniel Auty, disapproved of their relationship and particularly of Busby’s criminal activities, which endangered the entire family.

One night, the tension between Busby and Auty erupted into violence. Auty came to Busby’s home to confront him about Elizabeth. According to tradition, the confrontation occurred while Busby was sitting in his favorite chair at the local inn, now known as the Busby Stoop Inn. Auty threatened to take Elizabeth away. What happened next varies in the telling, but the result was clear: Busby followed Auty home that night and murdered him with a hammer.

Busby was quickly arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed in 1702, his body displayed in a gibbet near the inn as a warning to other would-be criminals. The spot where his body hung became known as Busby Stoop, and the inn took its name from this gruesome landmark.

But before his execution, Busby was granted a final request. He asked to be allowed one last drink at his favorite chair. As he rose from the chair for the last time, he spoke a curse: whoever sat in that chair would die.

The Deaths Begin

In the years following Busby’s execution, stories began circulating about deaths associated with the chair. People who sat in it seemed to die shortly afterward, often in accidents or from sudden illness. The chair remained at the inn, where it became both an attraction and a source of dread.

The most documented deaths occurred during and after World War II, when RAF pilots stationed nearby would visit the inn. According to local accounts, numerous airmen who sat in the chair as a test of courage failed to return from their next missions. The chair became notorious among the military personnel in the area, with some refusing to enter the pub and others making dares about sitting in it.

After the war, the deaths continued. A delivery driver who sat briefly in the chair died in a road accident the same day. Construction workers renovating the inn reportedly avoided the chair after one of their colleagues sat in it and fell from a roof shortly afterward. Tourists who dismissed the legend as superstition sometimes paid with their lives.

The Evidence

What distinguishes Busby’s Stoop Chair from other cursed objects is the apparent documentation of its victims. The Thirsk Museum, which now houses the chair, has tracked deaths associated with it and claims a toll of over sixty people since 1702. While precise verification of all these deaths is difficult across three centuries of records, the pattern is striking.

The deaths attributed to the chair share certain characteristics. They typically occur within a short time of sitting in the chair, ranging from hours to days. They often involve accidents rather than illness: car crashes, falls, sudden mishaps that might otherwise seem merely unfortunate. The victims are often young and healthy, people with no particular reason to expect death.

Skeptics point out that correlation does not prove causation. The chair sat in a public inn for centuries; many people must have sat in it without dying. Those who survived probably did not report their uneventful experiences, while those who died were remembered as victims of the curse. Confirmation bias and selective memory may have created a legend from random coincidence.

But those who have studied the chair’s history note that the death rate seems unusually high even accounting for these factors. The chair’s reputation became so notorious that relatively few people were willing to sit in it, yet deaths continued to accumulate. The specific circumstances of many deaths, their timing and manner, resist easy dismissal.

The Museum Solution

By the 1970s, the landlord of the Busby Stoop Inn had grown tired of the deaths, the notoriety, and the liability. He donated the chair to the Thirsk Museum with the stipulation that it never be sat in again. The museum accepted the chair and the challenge of displaying a cursed object safely.

Their solution was elegantly simple: they hung the chair from the ceiling, suspended at a height that makes sitting in it physically impossible. The chair now hangs in a display where visitors can examine it from all angles but cannot possibly trigger its curse. Since the chair was hung, no additional deaths have been reported.

The chair itself shows its age: worn oak, simple construction, nothing remarkable in appearance. It looks like what it is, an eighteenth-century pub chair that has seen centuries of use. Nothing about its appearance suggests the malevolence attributed to it. But the museum takes no chances, and the chair remains suspended, waiting for someone brave or foolish enough to take it down.

The Question of Belief

Busby’s Stoop Chair presents a genuine puzzle for those who study the paranormal. Unlike many cursed objects whose histories are vague or undocumented, the chair has a specific origin story, a clear line of custody, and documented victims. The curse was spoken by a named individual at a known time and place. The deaths, while difficult to verify in total, include numerous well-documented cases from the twentieth century.

Whether the chair is genuinely cursed or merely the focus of a centuries-long coincidence remains an open question. The phenomenon might be explained by psychology: people who sat in the chair, knowing its reputation, might have been distracted or anxious, leading to accidents. The phenomenon might be explained by statistics: over three hundred years, many people sat in the chair, and some percentage would die shortly afterward regardless.

Or the phenomenon might be exactly what it appears to be: a genuine curse, spoken by a dying man, that has claimed lives for over three centuries and shows no sign of lifting. The chair hangs from its museum ceiling, patient and eternal, waiting to prove one theory or the other.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Busby”
• Historic England — Listed Buildings — Register of historic sites