As you will see on the signs heralding your crossover onto Staffordshire soil, it is officially known as the Creative County. I would say a more appropriate description is the Creepy County. Admittedly, its sinister side does reveal itself in a more subtle way than that of other counties perhaps (although we do now have a Ghost Museum in Stoke and Cannock Chase is, well, Cannock Chase). Many of its most intriguing stories take a bit of digging and on these dark winter nights, I like nothing more than taking a metaphorical spade to the archives to see what unearthly tales I can uncover. There are those who mock my endeavours and are all too quick to point out that ghosts and monsters don’t exist. Perhaps not, but tales about them certainly do and I believe it’s impossible to get a sense of a place without its stories.

There is nothing more satisfying to me than an unexpected tale of the unexpected, leaping out from the landscape and that is what happened as I was driving home from Deadman’s Green in Uttoxeter recently. Ironically, my story doesn’t relate to the necro-named place, as one might imagine but to a nearby derelict mill turned dairy I spotted down a country lane. Too much of a scaredy Kate for urban exploring but always attracted by a bit of rural decay, I pulled over to have a nose from a safe distance. There were two stone plaques embedded into the red brick, which piqued my interest immediately. One read ‘H C 1771’ and the other ‘Destroyed by Fire WV Rebuilt 1897’. However, even I, as someone who is always writing about weird stuff, wasn’t prepared for what I found out.

I’ve just realised that I’m trying to build up the suspense when I’ve already given part of the game away in the title so I’ll fast forward to the story, taking us back in time to Victorian Staffordshire.

When staying with the Vernon family at Fole, sceptic turned spiritualist Dr George Sexton was enjoying a varied and lengthy conversation with his hosts, which lasted well into the early hours of the morning. Inevitably, the talk turned to Spiritualism and specifically, a séance which members of the household had taken part in at Fole Mill on the night of 17th November 1872. The medium was a young man named Manley, an assistant at the mill owned by the Vernons, and another recent convert to Spiritualism. As the participants (William Vernon, Jane Cooper, AC Manley, Thomas Atkins and E A Vernon) gathered around the table, Manley soon claimed he was in contact with a spirit, who spoke as follows,

“This is a very funny country. My name I will tell you. I am an old miller. I like a drop of beer when here. I was killed in a mill; I was doubled up, twisted round the shaft; it was something awful. My name is S_____ C______, and the name of the place Coddington Mill, Cheshire”.

Those present hadn’t heard of Coddington, never mind its mill, and signed a declaration to this effect. The following day however, they found details of it in a directory and so Mr Vernon decided to write a letter to ‘the Proprietor’.

“Dear Sir,

Would you oblige me whether a miller used to work at your mill by the name of S_____ C_______, and if killed in the mill and how, and kindly oblige me with the date of his death?”

On 29th November 1872, Albert Lowe of Coddington Mill replied,

“Dear Sir

S______ C______ was killed at Coddington, on September 6th 1860 in the fifty-third year of his age, and was buried in Coddington Churchyard. He was killed whilst in the act of putting a strap on a pulley to drive a grindstone, his coat having got entangle between the pulley and strap.

Your truly, Albert Lowe

I’ve checked back in the newspaper archive and there was indeed a fatal accident at Coddington involving the man named, on the date given and I am absolutely convinced there is more to this mill’s tale than meets the eye. Why did the Vernon family hold a seance there in the first place, unless it was just wealthy Victorians indulging in the ultimate parlour game? Were they motivated by something more than a mere desire to be entertained on a dark winter’s night in the Staffordshire countryside? After all, they didn’t have an excellent blog written by a woman from Lichfield to amuse them. Or a Channel Five documentary on Britain’s Favourite Cheese at Christmas (starts at 6.05pm folks). If we assume that young Manley was making it all up, how did he come by the information about the accident?

Even I, here on Team Believer, concede it highly unlikely that the spirit of the poor chap from Cheshire chose to make a fifty mile trip down the A500 to have a chat with a group of Staffordshire strangers twelve years after his death. Anyway, if I was him, I’d have stayed at Coddington Mill. It looks absolutely heavenly. If anyone wants to hire me to come and carry out a paranormal investigation there, just let me know…

Sources

Wrexham and Denbighshire Weekly Advertiser September 8 1860

The Spiritualist, May 8^th 1874

To the best of my knowledge, the following is based on a true account of unexplained events at rectory in Staffordshire in the 1930s, as recorded by Harry Price in his book ‘Poltergeist over England’. I have chosen not to reveal the exact location of the rectory in my post, nor the full names of those involved, as the current inhabitants might not consider finding out their house might be haunted to be a Halloween treat.

The new vicar and his family arrived in the village in March 1934 and soon settled into the house. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred until September that year when a young nephew came to stay. One evening, the boy felt unwell and so bedroom doors were left open, in case he needed assistance during the night . At around 4am in the morning Mrs H, the vicar’s wife, heard the sound of someone in bedroom slippers walking along the landing. Naturally assuming it to be her nephew, she sat up in bed and waited for him to come into the room. Nobody appeared, yet the sound of the footsteps continued. As they approached the bed, the air in the room turned icily cold. Convinced she was ‘up against something she had never experienced before’, Mrs H closed her eyes and reached for a small crucifix she had nearby. As she lay clutching the cross, she sensed somebody or something lean over her and her husband and heard it sigh deeply, before she felt the presence fade away. Mrs H believed it to be a small man in trouble but that he had gone out happier than he had come in.

Nothing else of note happened until the following September, when Mrs H was awakened by three loud raps and the sound of approaching footsteps once more. The vicar recalled her trembling with fear as she woke him.

The following September the family were on holiday and so if any paranormal activity did take place, it went unwitnessed by anyone. The following year was 1937 and on 12^th September, the Rev H had his first first-hand experience, in the form of three loud thumps on the bedroom door at around 6.30am. A further strange occurrence took place around this time one evening when the couple were getting undressed for bed. The vicar had forgotten something and went to fetch it from another room, taking the candle with him. When he returned, he found his wife terrified, as the petticoat she was taking off had burst into flames as she pulled it over her head.  

On 17^th September 1938 the vicar’s wife woke and heard two loud raps, presumably having been woken by the first. She woke her husband and announced ‘It has come’. Perhaps understandably, in April 1939, the vicar and his family moved to a parish in Northamptonshire. Whether his successors experienced anything paranormal in any of the subsequent Septembers is unknown.

The story as it stands is strange enough but there is a twist in the tale to tell you. The vicar had appealed to Price for any suggestion as to what might be causing the seemingly supernatural phenomenon as he was unable to find , ‘any local event of the past which occurred in September, and which would be likely account for it’. He wondered if it was related to the removal of the base of an ancient cross from the Rectory garden back into the church yard or the loan of a chalice and patten, dug up in the parish in 1823, to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I however have found something. In 1847, a local newspaper reported that the two young sons of the village’s then vicar were travelling in a cart when the horse pulling it took fright and bolted. The wagon overturned and the wheels passed over the elder of the two boys, leaving him with such catastrophic internal injuries that he died in his bedroom at the Rectory a few days later. And the month these tragic events took place in?

September.

With huge thanks to https://x.com/BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Lady Godiva was one of my childhood heroes along with Gladys from Hi-di-Hi and Hazel McWitch from Rentaghost. If I hadn’t already given my age away by referencing a Simply Red song I certainly have now.

Imagine my joy then when I discovered that my OG Lady G (see, I’m still down with the kids) is practically a neighbour of mine, separated by just six miles and 950 or so years. Well, in the summer at least. Her association with Coventry, where she rode naked through the streets to persuade her husband Earl Leofric to reduce the burden of taxation on the townspeople is well documented in art, literature and, as previously mentioned, an absolute banger from Mick Hucknall. Far less well known is the fact that the Saxon power couple had a holiday home in Staffordshire.

Leofric died at his Kings Bromley estate in 1057 and was buried at St Mary’s Priory and Cathedral in Coventry. Where was the Lady laid to rest though?. According to the chronicler William of Malmesbury, Godiva was buried alongside her husband after her death ten years later but the Chronicle of Evesham Abbey claims she was laid to rest in, perhaps unsurprisingly, Evesham Abbey. Until any hard evidence turns up to the contrary I think we can also entertain the local legend that she is buried beneath the eponymous churchyard cross at All Saints, Kings Bromley. Samuel Lewis makes the claim in his 1848 book, ‘A Topographical Dictionary of England’ that,  ‘Leofric, the husband of the famous Lady Godiva, died here in 1057; and she was herself buried here’ and in Pigot’s Directory of 1842 it says, ‘The church, dedicated to All Saints, is a neat structure and contains the remains of Lady Godiva’.

Along with the question of what happened to Godiva after she died, the location of where she and Leofric lived is also a subject for speculation. A half timbered and thatched building in the village known as ‘The Bungalow’ was used as a tearooms in in the early 20th century. A brass tablet on one of its beams made the bold claim that the timber had been take from Godiva and Leofric’s residence which had stood previously on the site. In 1923, a spark from a Staffordshire County Council steamroller set fire to the thatch and the building went up in flames. Until very recently I had assumed this meant that any possible links to Lady G had been lost but someone on Facebook posted a photo of both the beam and the plaque pronouncing it to be part of the palace.

Is this just another myth to add to the legends surrounding one of history’s most compelling characters or could there really be a tangible link to her life in someone’s living room in Staffordshire?

Sources:

Rugeley Times 13th March 1976

Lichfield Mercury 3rd July 1903

Tamworth Herald 30th June 1923

Birmingham Gazette 26 June 1923

Abbots Bromley is of course famous for its horn dance which bring hoards of historians, pagans and morris dancers hey nonny nonnying into the village on the Monday following the first Sunday after 4^th September. However, as I came to Staffordshire’s folk horror capital in search of Other Things, my latest visit took place on the first Monday after I broke up for my Easter holidays.

I’ve long been intrigued by the fact that though Mary, Queen of Scots spent many of her years of captivity in the county, the story of her time under lock and key in Staffordshire is surprisingly low key. I used to be a bit sniffy about popular history but nowadays I’m all for using it as a hook to get people interested in places. Hence why I went in search of the House on Hall Hill.  

The tourism potential of having hosted one of history’s most famous prisoners in the village, however fleetingly, was clearly capitalised on lback in the early 20^th century. Visitors were shown the room the Scottish Queen stayed in which was particularly impressive given that the current house on the site only dates back to the 18^th century. This tourism tactic is also used at the Goat’s Head pub which has gone a step further and named a room in ‘honour’ of Dick Turpin staying there. It’s highwayman unlikely that he did but does it really matter if he didn’t? Are people looking for history or just a story? Pubs and other local businesses are struggling so much for survival right now, if Dick and Mary, a secret tunnel or a haunting help to keep them alive then I’m happy to perpetuate a few myths.  Besides, don’t we all deserve a little enchantment and escapism these days?

A word of warning however. Ghosts aren’t always good for business. In the 1950s, the landlady of the 18th century Royal Oak inn complained punters had been avoiding the place after rumours of a bearded ghost in a nightdress who played a musical box up the chimney spread like wildfire. It’s now an Indian infused restaurant which I’ve been told does fabulous food. I understand the signature dish is a Chicken Vinda-boo.

Back to Mary’s visit, as it seems actual evidence of the event may exist. A pane of glass taken from the Manor House and reportedly now in the William Salt Library in Stafford is inscribed with the words ‘‘Maria Regina Scotiae quondam transibat istam villam 21 Septembris 1585 usque Burton’. Local legend says Mary scratched it into the glass herself using a diamond ring. An article in the Staffordshire Sentinel from April 1900 sort of corroborates this by saying,

’ The villagers tell with a faint suspicion of envy how the present proprietor of the farm sold a stained-glass window for £300, upon which had been scratched the autograph of Queen Elizabeth (sic) and, in their estimation made a very good bargain with the old tapestry from the Manor’.

I don’t want to shatter any romantic notions about this souvenir glassware but I have got a faint suspicion that the present proprietor might have been weaving a yarn here. Although I’m taking its provenance with a pinch of William Salt I’d still love to see the glass at the library and when their catalogue is up and running again I’ll be having a look through it to see if the pane is still part of their collection.  

One thing I can say with certainty is that Kate Lichfieldiae hic erat 3 Aprilis 2023 and was as captivated as ever by this beautiful Staffordshire village and its stories.

Sources:

Staffordshire Past Track

A Historical Guide to Abbots Bromley – Abbots Bromley Parish Council

Staffordshire Sentinel 7 April 1900

Rugeley Times 11 Deceber 1954

Birmingham Daily Gazette 13 December 1954

I know the Winter Solstice has passed and the nights are drawing out but I’m still, ok always, in the mood for a dark tale. Here’s a short, but definitely not sweet story about Doctor Darwin and the Dissection of the Deserter.

On 23rd October 1762, a notice appeared in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette advertising that,

The Body of the Malefactor, who is order’d to be executed at Lichfield on Monday the 25th Instant will be afterwards convey’d to the House Of Dr DARWIN, who will begin a COURSE of ANATOMICAL LECTURES at Four o’Clock on Tuesday evening, and continue them every Day as long as the Body can be preserved; and shall be glad to be favour’d with the Company of any who profess Medicine or Surgery, or whom the Love of Science may induce.

This public announcement has been discussed in many accounts of Darwin’s life but, as far as I can see, none of them ever named the Malefactor in question. His identity was easy enough to deduce as there is an article in the same newspaper a month prior describing how, Thomas Williams, a Soldier in the King’s Regiment of Volunteers quartered at Lichfield, who ‘had deserted from thence was seized in that City by two men belonging to the Regiment but he ran into the Fields and the Men pursuing him, he turned and stabbed the Foremost one, William Sly, with a Knife so that he died soon after. He then made off but has since been taken and committed to Lichfield Gaol’. The Coroner’s Inquest brought in a verdict of Wilful Murder.

Public hangings were few and far between in Lichfield but drew a bigger crowd than a new batch of Prime arriving at Aldi when they did take place. In the twenty three years Darwin lived in the city, Thomas Williams was the only murder to be hanged at Gallows Wharf. This suggests to me that this course of anatomical lectures may have been a one-off, unless Darwin had a supply of criminal corpses from elsewhere? Somewhere like Birmingham, for example? Disclaimer: as a Brummie I am allowed to get away with saying this. Actually, there was only ever one public execution in the second city, and it’s an intriguing tale indeed. One for another time though.

In December 1978, the Derby Daily Telegraph reported how the ‘Lichfield Quarter Sessions Order Book, 1727 – 58’, had recently been acquired from a sale at Christie’s by the Lichfield Record Office. It was the earliest volume in a series covering the period up until 1923, the rest of which were already held in the archives. It’s likely that it too had once been part of the collection but seems to have somehow strayed into private hands at some point. Criminal eh?

Amongst the many misdemeanors reported amidst its pages is the case of Henry Murral, who was hanged at Lichfield on 12th May 1738 for murdering Edward Cheney with a pitchfork. Just under ten years later, on 9th April 1747, William Hiccock, a soldier belonging to the Regiment of Old Buffs met the same fate for the murder of Mr Pealing, a Labourer from Lichfield.

Although there are examples of murderers being buried beneath the gallows they’d hanged from, I suspect that the bodies of Murral and Hiccock now lie in St Michael’s churchyard as their crimes were committed prior to the Murder Act of 1751, which stipulated that, ‘in no case whatsoever shall the body of any murderer be suffered to be buried’ and should instead by publicly dissected or hanged in chains, their burial in consecrated ground would still have been permissible. In addition, parish registers from the 16th century record the burials of a number of criminals taking place here. Amongst them is an entry for February 17th October 1592, when William Key of Bliffield and Nicholas Hatherton of Lichfield, two prisoners, ‘condemnd according to the laws of the land and executed here at this Cittie were both buryed in one grave’. What they were condemnd for is not recorded. We also of course know that the men executed for forgery in the early 19th century were interred here. I am curious as to what happened to the body of Thomas Williams once it was past the point of preservation. Does he rest in pieces at St Michaels?

Clearly, Doctor Darwin obtained his offender officially. However, there were of course those who did not. There was supposedly an infamous body snatcher called Bannister who lived in the Lichfield area in the first part of the nineteenth century. In July 1851, a group of men were drinking brandy and water at The Angel Inn including fishmonger Abraham Phillips, Henry Cato, landlord of the nearby Three Crowns, a draper’s assistant called Thomas Smith and Mr Orgill, the landlord of the Angel. It was an ill-tempered affair with insults and accusations flying about. At one point, Cato turned to Phillips and told him he’d never had much opinion of him since he’d been in partnership with old Bannister before asking him how many years it had been since his cart broke down from the weight of carrying the dead body of a solicitor named Robinson out of Ridware churchyard. Another man, Mr Emery joined in to say he thought it a bit fishy to suggest Phillip’s cart ever had the body in it, as Phillips had weighed twenty-two stone. Cato, however was adamant. “I can swear it and will prove it”, he declared although given that he ended up in court paying a farthing to Phillips for slander it seems he probably didn’t.

Can we prove it though? Was there any truth to this bodysnatching banter and is there hard evidence to suggest that bodies were taken from graveyards in the Lichfield area? Time to do some more digging…

Update:

In January 1829, two men stood before a judge and jury at the Lichfield quarter sessions accused of body snatching. The previous month, witnesses had seen them carrying a hamper from St Michael’s churchyard to the Swan Inn.

When John Coxon, church warden at St Michael’s and John Charles, a police officer, arrived at The Swan they opened the hamper and found it contained the body of a man who had been interred the previous Tuesday. The hamper was addressed to a man called Johnson of Tooley Street, Southwark, London, the men intending for their corporeal cargo to be delivered to him via coach.

Two pairs of muddy trousers were found at one of the men’s lodgings opposite the churchyard on Greenhill, where evidence of three more disturbed graves was discovered. Two had been broken open but the bodies left behind as their advanced state of decomposition meant they were not fit subjects for surgical operations. There were also rumours in the city that a child body had been stolen from St Chad’s the week before.

William Simpson and James King were both sentenced to 9 months in prison. Whether Mr Johnson of London was punished for his part in these ghastly goings on I do not know. It seems unlikely as he covered his tracks well. The address in Southwark appears to have been an old inn known as the Kings Head, where no doubt anonymous collection would have been arranged for a small fee, no questions asked.

Sources:

Aris’s Birmingham Gazette 27th September 1762

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/lichfield.html

Rev Thomas Harwood (1806), The History and Antiquities of the Church and City of Lichfield

Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser 19th March 1851

Staffordshire Advertiser 15th March 1851

Birmingham Journal 29th November 1828