The Cleveland Tontine takes its distinctly unusual name directly from the way it was originally financed: a tontine is a form of investment scheme in which subscribers pool their funds together for a shared project, with the eventual returns becoming increasingly concentrated among whichever subscribers happen to survive longest as the others gradually die off, a financial arrangement now largely obsolete but genuinely common in Georgian Britain, where the promise of an ever-growing share for the last survivors gave the whole scheme a slightly macabre edge even at the time. This particular tontine funded the construction of the coaching inn in 1804 at Staddlebridge, on the main road near Northallerton, where it has continued operating in one form or another ever since.
The haunting reported here is a comparatively gentle one by the standards of most entries gathered in this collection, a welcome contrast to the darker tontine-adjacent themes of mortality and survival that funded the building in the first place. Staff describe the presence of mischievous children who seem to genuinely enjoy games of hide and seek around the inn, along with moving small objects from place to place, playful rather than remotely threatening in either intent or effect.
No names or specific historical children have ever been attached to these reports, and the story is treated locally as one of the inn's most characterful and well-loved quirks rather than as any real source of unease among staff or guests. Between its distinctly morbid Georgian financing scheme and its genuinely light-hearted, playful modern haunting, the Cleveland Tontine offers an unusually cheerful counterpoint to the many darker, more solemn hauntings recorded elsewhere in this county.
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