The Final Curtain

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My daughter is taking me to see the Phantom of the Opera as an early birthday treat next week. Now I’m not expecting to find a subterranean lair and lake beneath the Lichfield Garrick (although there is probably a secret tunnel on the basis every other building in the city seems to have one) but I am wondering if there are any local theatres where long dead actors or audience members still linger on?

I already know of one famously spooky scene up north, involving Les Dawson and a dressing room at the Sunderland Empire in 1989. Dawson supposedly saw the spectre of Sid James, who had died on stage there thirteen years prior, wearing a shroud and reflected in the mirror behind him. The experience troubled Dawson to the extent that he refused to ever return there and would not share the words that Sid’s spook spoke to him that day. Some say James’s distinctive laugh still echoes around the theatre. Sounds like they need to get a priest in to bless this playhouse.

What did Syd Little (and others) see here?

Percy Purdy was a former manager of the Wolverhampton Grand. Mr Purdy managed the theatre from the 1920s until his retirement in 1949 at the grand old age of 80. He lived on the top floor of the building and it seems he never left. Glasses rattle in the bar, furniture rearranges itself and invisible fingers tap away on computer keyboards. In November 1984, actor Victor Spinetti saw a figure cross the room and vanish through a wall whilst he was waiting for the start of the show. Staff believe all of this activity is the work of Percy although he is not the only ghost of the Grand. There’s also a grey lady who leaves the scent of lavender behind her and the story says that she died after falling from a box down into the orchestra pit. Syd Little is said to have had a terrifying experience in the gents up in the dress circle but would not revealed what had happened to him. According to an article in the Express and Star from 2003, the most haunted spot in the theatre had a wall built across it during a refurbishment in the late 1990s, onto which a signed photo of Ken Dodd was hung. Whether this has stopped the grey lady, or whatever it was what scared Syd, from walking I do not know. (The wall I mean, not the photo of Ken).

Regular readers will know that my idea of a paranormal investigation involves delving back into the archives to see if there are any nuggets of truth to these tales. Incredibly the fatal fall into the orchestra is not fictional although the story has become somewhat twisted over the years. In December 1905, the Birmingham Post reported that a check-taker named John Smith had tumbled into the pit from a top box whilst putting the covers on the balconies after a pantomime and was proclaimed dead from a fractured skull on his arrival at the Wolverhampton General Hospital.

Up in Stoke, the Regent is not even one hundred years old but has still managed to acquire two ghosts. The building was only transformed to a theatre in 1999 having originally being opened as a cinema seventy years prior. A girl haunts the stalls and an investigation in 2004 named her as Alice Gregory. Up on the balcony, the apparition of a man has been seen surveying the auditorium. Interestingly, a former manager of the Regent Cinema was Lawrence Gregory who passed away suddenly in 1933 at the age of just 41. On the day of his funeral the cortege passed the entrance to the cinema and was saluted by staff as it passed by. Could he be the man in the balcony, still standing watch over his place of work and is there any connection between Mr Gregory and the girl?

Lichfield Garrick Panto, 2017

I mentioned the Lichfield Garrick at the start, and it is there we shall return for our finale. Opened in 2003, its modern appearance might not strike you as somewhere spooky. However, I was messaged by a former employee who wanted to know if there were any stories about the site as several of her co-workers had experience strange things. I located details of an investigation carried out by the West Midlands Ghost Club who reported poltergeist activity, shadowy figures and the presence of woman in high heels and 1950s-style clothing on some steps near the stage. I am pleased to say this bit of Lichfield theatre lore also features the apparition of a celebrity. Radio WM DJ Malcolm Boyden once had an experience in the sound booth with the door of the room being flung open and the pile of papers on the table in front of him being thrown into the air.

Perhaps some folks really do carry on their roles after the final curtain has fallen?

Sources:

West Midlands Ghost Club/ Our Haunted Midlands on X

Wolverhampton Express and Star, Wednesday, 7 November 1984

Wolverhampton Express and Star, Thursday, 30 October 1997

Wolverhampton Express and Star Saturday, 26 July 2003

Birmingham Daily Post Saturday, 30 December 1905

The Era, Saturday, 6 January 1906

Staffordshire Sentinel, Sunday, 21 March 2004

Staffordshire Sentinel Saturday, 15 July 1933

Mercian Murders

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There are fields full of Cavaliers and Roundheads, still fighting over the fate of England. Roman soldiers marching along the roads they built. Tragic Tudor queens, often minus their heads. And you can’t move for Victorian phantoms, presumably conjured up from all of those seances they were holding. What does seem to be in short supply in this spectred isle however are the ghosts of Saxons.

If somewhere was going to be haunted by a Saxon spirit, it would be Seckington. The Saxon Chronicle states that in 755, ‘Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, was slain at Seckington and his body lies at Repton‘. The account of the assassination is minimal but accounts say he was betrayed by his own bodyguards, some suggesting that his successor, Beornred of Mercia, was behind the treachery.

The crypt at Repton

After Æthelbald’s death, Beornred seized the Mercian throne. Little is known about him and within a year, Æthelbald’s cousin Offa launched his own claim to the throne and most likely offed him in the process. By contrast, there is much to be said about Offa, but as I started on the subject of murder, let’s continue on that theme.

Penny depicting Cynethryth, Queen of Mercia.
(C) The Portable Antiquities Scheme

A marriage between King Æthelberht of East Anglia and one of the daughters of Offa and Cynethryth of Mercia was arranged to take place at a palace on Sutton Walls in Herefordshire. Yet before the bridegroom could make it to the altar and pledge his hand in marriage, he was beheaded. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle attributes the deed to Offa. By the twelfth century there’s a shift in narrative and blame to Cynethryth. Was she really the wicked queen she is depicted as by chroniclers like Roger of Wendover or was it a cynical attempt to wash at least some of the blood off Offa’s hands? We know Cynethryth was powerful, her name appearing on charters and her face appearing on coins. Perhaps there’s an element of medieval misogyny involved in the tarnishing of her image? After Offa died in 796, Cynethryth took holy orders and became the abbess of a monastery at Cookham. In 2021, archaeologists found the foundations of this abbey alongside Cookham church and further excavations may even find the final resting place of this misrepresented Mercian queen.

We’ve wandered a long way from Lichfield so let’s end our journey much closer to home. In 716, King Ceolred of Mercia was buried at the Cathedral, despite the fact that he had died at a feast, ‘gibbering with demons and cursing the priests of God’. St Boniface believed him to have been possessed by a demon but I strongly suspect he was poisoned. I’d be very interested to see if his successor Æthelbald was on the guest list, bringing us a full and vicious circle back to the beginning of this post.

Black and white print of an oil panting by Margaret Dovaston depicting King Celored of Mercia smitten with madness

Sources:

The wanderings of a pen and pencil by F. P. Palmer

https://www.suttonwalls.co.uk/fact-pages

Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, Annie Whitehead

The Seance in Stafford

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In the autumn of 1933, ghost hunter Elliott O’Donnell wrote to the Rector of Stafford asking if he could be connected to any houses in or near the county town where paranormal activity had been reported in the hope he could spend Halloween night at one of them. After discounting Weston Hall, a decision which would literally come back to haunt him, and an unnamed place near Penkridge, he was put in touch with the residents of property at Rickerscote on the outskirts of Stafford.

Accompanying him was author and army officer, Wilfred Byford-Jones who recorded the adventure in his book ‘Midland Leaves’. He describes the house as, ‘a pleasing old structure with nothing eerie about it’. However, the mistress of the hall revealed that she, along with her husband and several friends, had seen the spirit of an old woman dressed in black in the sitting room and out on the lawns on several occasions. As luck would have it, they were holding a seance that very evening to try and connect with this shady lady.

After dinner, the two men returned to Rickerscote to find four people sat around a large log fire in the sitting room. O’Donnell joined the circle but the Quaestor preferred to observe only and settled himself in a dark corner. To begin, the participants placed their fingers on the table and chanted the words to hymns. In the hour that followed, the group sat in silence as the wind howled in the chimney and the rain lashed against the windows, the tension punctuated by the ticking of an old grandfather clock.

Quaestor began to feel sleepy until an ear-piercing scream came from one of the male guests. He began to gibber and sway with the mistress of the house joining in moments later. Neither said anything that made any sense. The woman then began to whimper for several minutes. As she fell back into her chair a hiss came from her husband.

‘There she is’. He seemed to stare at something before continuing. ‘It is the old lady I have seen before in this room and on the lawn’.

Two other guests also claimed they could see her. Quaestor followed their gaze but could see nothing, ghost or otherwise. Even when someone suggested that the spirit was stood near to him, tending to a bird in a cage, he could see nothing. Nor could he feel the pocket of cold air the others claimed to.

The seance continued until midnight struck on the old grandfather clock. Those gathered revealed the uninvited guest had a name. Miss L____ E_____ J______, a former resident who had loved the house and hoped the person she passed it onto in her will would live there. This wish was not fulfilled and presumably was the reason her presence remained. The two visitors left around 12.30am and the following morning, O’Donnell recorded his own version of events.

“A sudden feeling came over me that there was a presence of some kind just behind a lady on my right. I asked her if she was concious of it. She said, ‘Yes I know it is there. It is a lady in black. She came in through the closed window, crossed the floor to the door, then came to me’.

Quaestor’s own account differs somewhat. “I can only say that I am baffled, having seen nothing and heard nothing that could not be explained by natural phenomena.”

Acton Trussell, the final resting place of Miss L___ E___ J____

I suspect the events at the house on that Halloween night were down to mass hysteria rather than a haunting. However, after much reflection, I’ve decided not to share the precise location of the house just in case its former resident really did return to her Rickerscote home and the current residents would rather not know about it.

I myself shall be returning to the subplot involving Weston Hall another day. It’s one of my favourite haunted houses in all of Staffordshire but I’m much more likely to indulge in scones instead of a seance when sat around the fireplace here.

Weston Hall

Sources:

Midland Leaves, Quaestor aka Wilfred

Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 9 June 1917

The Unburial at Burntwood

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In April 1856, William Palmer was languishing in prison awaiting trial for the murder of his best friend John Cook at the Talbot Arms. There was also a strong suspicion he had poisoned several members of his own family and rumours relating to Rugeley’s most infamous son were in plentiful supply. As The Crown debated whether his notoriety would prevent a fair hearing at Stafford, the Birmingham Mercury announced his house was soon to open as an inn known as ‘The Strychnine Arms’. Elsewhere reports of Palmer’s death were greatly exaggerated.

Christ Church Burntwood

As Palmer awaited his fate, The Staffordshire Advertiser reported that ‘considerable excitement has prevailed in the neighbourhood of Burntwood, near Lichfield…in consequence of a rumour that the body of a female was to be exhumed, after an interment of twelve months, some suspicion having recently arisen that death had been occasioned by other than natural causes’. The female in question was Catherine Ashmall of Edial, a farmer’s wife who had died in March 1855.

A few months after the funeral, the newly widowed Joseph Ashmall had married his servant Sarah. This may have raised a few eyebrows in Edial but it seems to be the absence of a medical certificate stating the cause of Catherine’s death which persuaded the Coroner, William Webb Ward, and the Chief Constable of the County that a crime may have been committed. Both men wrote to the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, who ordered that an inquest should be held on the body of Catherine Ashmall without delay.

The grim task of exhuming the body took place at 7 o’clock in the morning on Friday 4th April 1856 at Christ Church. The Reverend Poole left soon after authorising the opening of the grave and who came blame him for not wanting to stay and bear witness to such a ghastly spectacle. Under the watch of churchwardens, John Tudor and Edward Woolley, a group of police officers raised the coffin from the brick built vault which should have been Catherine’s final resting place. They then took her to a barn at her former home at Edial Farm and kept watch over the corpse.

At ten o’clock a jury of 23 gentlemen was sworn in at The Star Inn and then taken to see the body in the barn which was ‘in a very advanced state of decomposition, almost every trace of personal identity being obliterated’. On re-assembling at the inn, where I imagine several stiff drinks were in order, the Coroner announced an adjournment was necessary to allow a post-mortem to be carried out on the corpse. The unfortunate physicians chosen to undertake the examination were Dr Monckton of Rugeley and Mr Welchman, a Lichfield surgeon. Mr Major Butler Morgan was also to be present on behalf of Joseph Ashmall. The post-mortem took place at 2pm during which Dr Monckton recommended the viscera should be analysed. The internal organs were taken out and sent to Professor Taylor at Guy’s Hospital and then what remained of Catherine Ashmall’s remains were placed back in her grave at Christ Church.

On 21st April the inquest reconvened and a series of local witnesses appeared to tell of Catherine’s delicate health prior to her death and to vouch that Joseph had been a kind husband who always behaved well to her. Dr Monckton advised that the cause of death was diarrhea which may have arisen from natural causes or the administration of medicine or poisonous substances. However, the final evidence presented to the jury was the analysis carried out by Professor Taylor which proved that no poison was present in the stomach or intestines of Catherine Ashmall and that death had been from natural causes.

The Star, Burntwood

The verdict was met with cheers by the friends of her husband who had gathered at The Star. It was reported that the rumours of foul play had originated from a relative with malicious feelings towards Joseph Ashmall.  One newspaper reports that this person was present in the pub as the verdict was revealed and only avoided a ducking in the horse trough after the landlady intervened.

When researching the events at Edial, I was astonished to find that another Ashmall had been falsely accused of murder around half a century earlier. In 1794, Thomas Ashmall of Farewell Hall was accused of poisoning Elizabeth Scaratt who had dropped down dead in his hay field. On this occasion there was no doubt that this was nothing more than defamation and no inquest or disinterment was required. Instead Isaac Startin of Ashmoor Brook, who had made the malicious allegation, was told to take out an advert in several local newspapers publicly begging forgiveness and admitting his motivation was bitterness that the license for his beerhouse in Chorley had been blocked by Ashmall.

There is one more case from Burntwood which rivals even that of The Rugeley Poisoner when it comes to notoriety. Perhaps we will return to this toxic topic another day to talk about Sarah Westwood, the last woman to be hanged in Staffordshire, who swore she was innocent right until the very end

Sources

County Advertiser & Herald for Staffordshire and Worcestershire  Saturday, 12 April 1856

Staffordshire Advertiser Saturday, 5 April 1856

Staffordshire Advertiser Saturday, 12 April 1856

London Evening Standard, Tuesday, 22 April 1856

Birmingham Daily Mercury, Tuesday, 22 April 1856

The Phantom Fan of Bescot Stadium

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With the new season kicking off this weekend it seems somewhat synchronous to have found a story of a spectre wandering around the stands of Walsall FC. Back in 1996, staff at the Bescot Stadium reported seeing a boy wearing old fashioned clothes more in keeping with the styles of the early twentieth century than the approaching millennium. No comments about the sartorial elegance of Saddlers fans, or lack of, please. I share a house with two of them.

Accompanying the apparition of the lad was a series of strange events which included lights being turned on, doors being opened and things being pushed off shelves in an empty building. The commercial director at the time, Roy Whalley, had his own experience when he was sorting through post in the office and heard a crackling sound accompanied by disembodied voices, as if a radio had been switched on.

Bescot Stadium 2007
By John M, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12948600

After the story on the apparition appeared in the Walsall Observer, a pensioner from the Birchills area of the town made contact with the paper to say he didn’t believe in ghosts but did remember a tragic incident near the club’s original ground at Fellows Park, about half a mile away from Bescot, involving a group of lads loitering near ground to try and get in for free. His recollection was correct. In March 1933, an inquest was held on the body of a boy who was hit by a train and thrown against a wall at Wallows Lane Bridge.

Fellows Park 1982 by Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0,

Whoever the phantom fan was, he seems to have been sent off by the prayers of the club chaplain, as there have been no sightings of him since. It has made me wonder which other local stadiums might have supernatural stories to tell. Do any spirits wander Wolverhampton’s ground or is The Hawthorns haunted? Are there any fans at Villa Park lingering long after the final whistle has blown? I’d love to hear any tales you might have to tell about the boo-tiful game.

Sources

Walsall Observer, Friday, 18 October 1996

Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 11 March 1933

The Ruins of Bellamour

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Perhaps it’s the feeling in the air that autumn is about to arrive, but I’m in the mood for a good old gothic ghost story (although frankly, when aren’t I?). When writing about haunted houses I am often faced with a dilemma between the desire to share a really good story and the guilt that the people living there may not share the same enthusiasm.

The ruins of Bellamour Old Hall. Built by Herbert Aston in 1638
(c) Staffordshire County Council

Fortunately, in this instance, I have no qualms, as the location for today’s tale was demolished in the 1960s. Well, sort of. Part of Bellamour Old Hall in Colton still stands as ruins, rumoured to be cursed after attempts to raze it to the ground were met with a series of accidents and mishaps. The hex on the house was said to have been placed by former owner Lady Mary Blount, who later built a new Bellamour Hall alongside it for her son. The journal of a Miss Mary Bagot of Blithfield mentions that a stash of treasure was supposedly hidden somewhere amongst the stones of the old house. Are these two legends linked in some way?

Bellamour New Hall c.1830. The old house can be seen just behind.

The new Bellamour Hall is also no more. It was taken down in the 1920s and sold off piecemeal. When the two halls were still standing, the old one seems to have been used as a residence for senior servants on the estate. George Morrall, head gardener, lived there with his family in the late 19th century. Later, his son Harry succeeded him in the role and spoke to a local newspaper about the spooky side of his former home.

Harry Morrall explained that his twin sister Charlotte was born at the Old Hall. Presumably, as her twin brother, he must have been born there too, and a check in the Colton parish registers confirms that in July 1882, both Harry and Charlotte Morrall were born at Bellamour. It was on the evening of 15th September 1905 that Miss Morrall woke to see what she described as someone in flowing black robes with a beautiful face beckoning to her. Exactly a year later she saw the same thing and between visitations she sometimes heard footsteps walking the floorboards of the old hall.

Although he never witnessed the apparition himself, Mr Morrall did hear the phantom pacing the corridors. On one occasion, he saw the door latch to his room lift up as if someone was about to enter but, when he shouted, the presumed paranormal intruder changed its mind and left. The twins found out from another member of the Bagot family that a man had supposedly been murdered there in 1698, his widow becoming a nun.

Possibly related to the haunting of the old hall are reports of cries emanating from a nearby meadow. Intriguingly, this seems to be near to the site where the stone foundations of a medieval chapel lie beneath the lawn. Bones and the carving of a stone head with a grotesque human face were also found here by the Reverend Parker c.1921. Then, there’s a message I was sent a few years ago by someone who was left unsettled by a dream about a Victorian boy standing facing the boundary wall surrounding the Bellamour estate and hearing the word ‘angry’ as she awoke at 3.33 am.

I believe stones from the old hall were used when building the boundary wall at Bellamour

One final story dates back to around the time of the attempted demolition of the old hall. In 1963, the owner invited a psychic from Birmingham to visit and she claimed to have picked up on a lady with a cross around her neck and a man carrying a Bible. Underwhelmingly, she also claimed to have seen ‘lots of trees around’. Wait, I’m getting the word…..’cobblers’.

I’m looking forward to digging into these tales of hidden treasure, crying bones, beckoning nuns and phantom footsteps to see if any truth is buried within them. Watch this space for more about Bellamour…

Sources

https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=95a0691d-b349-4845-82f6-2d81e4b93893&resourceID=19191

Links With the Past, Sophy Louisa Bagot

Staffordshire Advertiser, Saturday, 25 May 1929

Rugeley Times, Saturday, 30 January 1982

Lichfield Mercury, Friday, 20 August 1943

Lichfield Mercury, Friday, 21 September 1923

http://coltonhistorysociety.org.uk/

Mucky Business

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Muckley Corner is my least favourite place to be at 7am on a weekday morning. Thankfully I now have a few weeks off from trying to negotiate this unholy island and some time to take a look at its history.

The highway to hell c2008 Geoff Pick / Muckley Corner / CC BY-SA 2.0

I already had several questions in mind about Muckley, ranging from the pedestrian, ‘When did the corner actually become a roundabout?’ to the less prosaic, ‘Was there once an ancient burial mound here?’. However, during the course of my corner-based investigations, another question has also emerged. There is a reference to Richard Key’s Coach and Horses at Muckley Corner in the Birmingham Gazette in 1766. The reference relates to an incident when some butchers accidentally left behind a heifer after visiting Fazeley Fair. The question here is not how the heck do you forget you brought a cow to the pub and neither is it were the butchers ever reunited with their bovine? It’s actually was the Coach and Horses mentioned a predecessor of the Muckley Corner House Inn? Records held at the Staffordshire History Centre show it was called the New Inn, then Muckley House, and later Muckley Corner House and there’s a hint that a drinking establishment was in existence here in the mid- seventeenth century. Katherine Reeves, the wife of Humphrey Reeves, was to appear at the Lichfield Quarter Sessions in January 1642, and in the meantime, keep the peace towards Anne Bull of Pipehill. Humphrey is listed as a victualler which suggests he may have been an innkeeper.

A further name change saw it called ‘The Olde Corner House Hotel’ in its final years and I can vaguely remember the place being open when I first moved to Lichfield back in 2004 and being an Italian restaurant for a while. Thankfully we do not need to rely solely on my murky memories as my old mucka, the legendary Brownhills Bob, documented the establishment’s demise on his blog. It closed in Summer 2009 and is now residential properties and apparently the HQ of Planet Ice. I’m not quite sure what in the Torvil and Dean that’s all about.

There’s a sad story relating to how the replacement of stagecoaches by steam engines displaced some people in February 1864. John Brooks, described as a former driver of the Chester Mail until it was driven off the road, was charged by PC John Hobbs with being found in a hovel in Burntwood and resisting the police. Whilst in custody on the road, Brooks said he could not and would not walk without something to drink. Hobbs took him into a pub and bought him a pint of beer. The magistrates were reported to be sorry for the poor fellow having a good laugh at his broad tales about old times. Not sorry enough not to fine him 1s and costs however.

I’ve already mentioned a couple of cases but there is much more to be done about the links Muckley Corner has to the law because there seems to have been a police station there from the 1860s and in the 19th century century, petty sessions were held at the inn itself. There are even rumours of a lock-up to detain the miscreants of Muckley.

It’s a diversion too far for now though as I want to get back to my original questions. All I can find is out about the first though is that the island idea was first proposed in 1953 following a dreadful accident which saw thirteen people hospitalised but I can’t quite pin down the actual date when it was constructed. And as to whether there was once an ancient burial mound here? All I can present is some circumstantial evidence.

In The Midland Antiquarian edited by William Fowler Carter in 1882, it claims that, ‘In early deeds Muckley Corner is called Mucklow. It is situated on Watling Street where it is crossed by the main road from Walsall to Lichfield which was made about 150 years ago; the addition ‘Corner’ was then probably given to it. I think the derivation clearly – AS Mucel; ME mikel, mukel, mockel, great and low, a mound or tumulus – great mound. There is no tumulus to be seen, nor is there any record of one known to me, but many ancient lows have been carted away for agricultural purposes or for repairing. roads About 50 years ago Muckley Corner stood on the boundary of Cannock Chase, and the country to the south was open common’.

If etymology isn’t enough, then there are several other landmarks marked on old maps and in street names in the vicinity which give us a glimpse of an ancient landscape that is now mostly lost. I can’t prove there was a burial mound at Muckley Corner but I think I can prove there is the potential for there to have been one. The irony is you’re going to have come along and negotiate that unholy island with me so buckle up folks.

Sources

Aris’s Birmingham Gazette – Monday 03 November 1766.

Staffordshire Advertiser – Saturday 23 February 1811

Staffordshire Record Office document Q/SR/249/69

The Most Dangerous Place in Staffordshire

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Readers, I apologise for my attempt at clickbait. It’s Chartley Moss. A place so treacherous that you aren’t allowed to enter without an expert guide.

This nature reserve eight miles to the north-east of Stafford is the largest schwingmoor in Britain. Did anyone else over the age of 45 read that in the voice of Wayne or Garth? A raft of peat floats above a 13 metre deep lake and any trees that do manage to grow are drowned before they mature creating an eerie environment of dead trunks poking out of the moss.

By Simon Huguet, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13456886

This strange floating forest has naturally attracted a raft of folklore. A spectral huntsman has been seen leading a pack of hounds across the site and there are rumours that a railway engine and a JCB lie sunken somewhere beneath the depths of the bog.

There is one story about two absolute local legends which is absolute fact however. On 25th February 1994, a Vickers Viscount crashed into the Moss, killing the pilot. Landing upside down and on fire, two local men saw the crash landing and made their way through the darkness to where they could hear passenger Raymond Cole crying out for help. Eventually they reached him and pulled him to safety . For their bravery, Victor Antcliff and David Gregory of Drointon were presented with the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery.

As I’ve missed the guided walk there (it was last weekend), here’s Christopher Brasher and Deputy Area Officer for The Nature Conservancy, Mr Oswald, to show us around this perilous peat bog. Two splendid chaps indeed. We’re not worthy.

Sources

The Road to Chartley, Jim Foley

Wolverhampton Express and Star – Friday 19 January 1996

Bodies of Evidence

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After reading of archaeological discoveries in North Lichfield, I thought it a good time to review one of the city’s greatest history mysteries. A quick recap then for anyone who, unlike me, hasn’t been obsessing for over fifteen years about how ‘a considerable quantity of human bones‘ were found in the early nineteenth century in a meadow adjoining Christian Fields.

The path to Pones Mill

Many of the bones were found a few feet beneath the surface in the quirkily named ‘Toads Hole Piece’, alongside some Roman pottery, the head of a pike and several horseshoes, although skeletal fragments were scattered across a half-mile radius. Only the bones found at Pones Mill, now known as Netherstowe House, were said to have had the appearance of having been buried, but it’s possible that they may have been dug up elsewhere and ‘thrown into an excavation’ there.

Eighteenth century antiquarians linked the discoveries of the bones to the Lichfield legend, in which a thousand Christians were massacred at the start of the fourth century during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The site of the slaughter is still known as Christian Fields and although proper historians say the story is nothing more than a myth, the legend lives on. The Martyrs Plaque, a carving of three cadavers which once adorned the facade of the Guildhall can now be found in Beacon Park and elsewhere there are other versions of our sinister city seal, including on the railway bridge near the station. These visual versions of the legend and the refusal of people like me to stop referring to the city as ‘the Field of the Dead’ even though its exact etymology is ‘the Field by the Grey Wood’have all helped to ensure that this example of Lichfield lore endures.

Welcome to the Field of the Dead folks

If we discount the dead martyrs, what other explanations are there for the cartloads of bones being found beneath the fields of Netherstowe? Here are some of the possibilities I’ve considered. Feel free to dissect and discuss as necessary.

If there was ever a graveyard to epitomise the idea of death being the great leveller, it would be St Michaels on Greenhill.

An outbreak of plague in 1593 led to the deaths of over 1,100 Lichfeldians. Later outbreaks took place during the already troubled times of the Civil War, leading to the demise of another 800 citizens. Could the bones buried at Christian Field the victims of the disease? It seems unlikely. In the parish register of St Michael’s, someone has added notes alongside the names of those buried there in summer 1593. In July, ’67 dead of plague’. In August, ’59 dead of plague’. During this particular outbreak of plague in Lichfield at least, it seems those who succumbed rest in peace at the churchyard at Greenhill rather than in a pit on the northern outskirts of the city.

Could our Christian Field corpses be the remains of Civil War soldiers then, slaughtered in a skirmish on the outside of the city as the Close was being besieged? Again, the registers of St Michael’s suggest otherwise. There are records of twenty five soldiers being buried in the churchyard between 1642 and 1645 which suggests that men killed during the conflict were also buried here at Greenhill.

For me, as alluded to above, it’s the recent archaeology that’s been carried out in the Curborough area which may hold the key to solving the mystery of Christian Fields. Sixty coins dating to between the early 2nd to 4th century have been unearthed near to the farm, along with forty brooches. More examples of mortaria, as found at Christian Fields, have turned up along with worked marble and alabaster, Samian pottery fragments and glass suggesting there was a Roman settlement or at least a villa here. A much simpler Romano – British roundhouse has also been excavated nearby, along with a granary and well alongside it. What we can be sure of then is that there was occupation of a site near Christian Fields during the reign of Diocletian but whether those living here were converts to the new religion or still worshipping the old gods is unknown.

Sunset on Watery Lane

There are also field names which hint at a history which definitely has the potential to explain the presence of bones in this area. The 1851 Staffordshire tithe map records a ‘Chapel Meadow’, ‘Chapel Croft’ and perhaps most pertinently, ‘Graveyard’ in the vicinity of Watery Lane. And finally, and perhaps most remarkably at all, a single surviving Bronze Age burial has been found nearby in the form of a few fragments of cremated bone and sherds of the collared urn which once contain these ancient remains.

If burials really have been taking place in this area for not just centuries but millenia, perhaps ‘The Field of the Dead’ might be an accurate description after all…

Sources:

Staffordshire Parish Registers Collection

Click to access part-2-2023.pdf

Land at Curborough South, Lichfield, Staffordshire: Archaeological Evaluation © Cotswold Archaeology

WATERY LANE, LICHFIELD
EARTHWORK SURVEY, EVALUATION TRENCHING AND MITIGATION, Headland Archaeology

https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=d01084bb-f418-47a7-b5e4-4b292c3cd6d1&resourceID=19191

Cursed Soles Part II

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On our second visit to Papillon Hall, we’re going to step away from the tales of the infamous cursed footwear. Instead, let’s meet the man painted as the villain of the piece and his portrait, an artwork which appears to have had the power to scare the heebie-jeebies out of anyone who gazed upon it. Disclaimer – when I included an image of it in part I I did not know this. Please read at your own risk.

David Papillon was born in 1691, and was the grandson of the man who had originally built the hall earlier that century. Most biographies depict him as a respectable and upstanding gentleman but local folklore hints that there was a darker side to the man they called ‘Old Pamp’1.

Papillon Hall, before it was rebuilt with wings in 1903

Pamp was said to be something of a sorcerer with such a mesmerising gaze that he could bewitch people to the point that they were powerless to move. His portrait also appears to have possessed the same power. Sometimes visitors to the hall would stand and stare at it for long periods of time, seemingly incapable of turning away. Even more chilling are the stories that on some nights Pamp himself would actually step out from the artwork and roam the rooms of Papillon. One servant girl reported seeing him stood at the end of her bed wearing the same clothes as he did in the painting.

When the portrait was moved to Crowhurst Park near Hastings, Pamp’s ghost went with it. Bertha Tufnell, who was letting Crowhurst from his descendant Pelham Rawsthorn Papillon, saw Pamp standing in the drawing room as if he’d just climbed out of the painting. Following this he tried to materialise on several other occasions but Bertha worked out that reciting a prayer seemed to stop him from fully forming outside of his frame. As a more permanent solution she sent a desperate letter to Pelham and he arranged for the creepy canvas to be removed to his residence in Hastings.

An intriguing article appeared in the Market Harborough Advertiser in December 1946 with the author ‘FPS’ claiming that forty years ago he’d met a man who was on his way to Papillon Hall and tried to engage him in conversation. When he mentioned the famous infamous cursed footwear and the ghost of Pamp the man became visibly uncomfortable and reluctant to chat. FPS tired to reassure him that ghost stories were nonsense but this distressed the man even more. The man clutched the author’s arm, warning him to be careful as Old Pamp could get nasty and had a tendency to appear when people were dismissive. Undaunted, FPS joked that he’d like to see him so that he could ask about a painting he had which once used to hand in Papillon Hall.

A few months after this encounter on the Theddingworth to Lubenham Road, strange things began to happen at the home of FPS. It started with the Papillon painting falling to the ground with a crash. The cord was replaced, the nails secured and it was put back up again but the painting fell down a further three times. New fasteners were added to the frame, along with two brass chains and two lengths of copper wire, all separately fastened to hooks secured in the newly re-plugged wall. A length of hempen rope was also added for extra measure and FPS felt confident the painting would now stay put. Funnily enough, it did not.

The painting was left leaning against the wall and that night, FPS and his wife heard footsteps on the stairs and a bell ringing violently somewhere in the house. In the morning, another painting was found to have fallen. Things soon escalated from ‘a bit odd’ to ‘outright terrifying’, one night when a howling was heard outside the house. As the author and his wife discussed if the sound could be made by a dog, it came nearer. As FPS recalled,

“Description fails, words cannot express the unholy thing, it was vilely evil, blood-curdling, only someone or something in hellish torment could howl like that. It came still nearer and we could track the sound as ‘It’ approached the house. A moment later it seemed even still nearer, then, to our unspeakable horror we realised the ‘thing’ was in the house”.

FPS grabbed a candle and went downstairs. As he descended the house seemed filled with the sound but then came an unnatural silence. He could find nothing to account for the sound, though the dogs were cowering and staring at something invisible. Suddenly, a shriek cut through the silence, seeming to emit from the spot the dogs were staring at. They bolted from the room, with FPS not far behind them. Half-way across the hallway, the candle went out. In the darkness, the howl came again, this time from between his feet, before moving level with his head. Then he heard his wife shouting to him, ‘Quick! Quick! it’s on the stairs’, and managed to get back into the bedroom where he and his wife held the door fast until the howling ceased. He never heard it again. Perhaps David Papillon had made his point.

Incredibly, there is yet more of this mysterious story to share. There’s a line in the Market Harborough Advertiser which lends weight to the story that a skeleton was found when the hall was being renovated at the start of the twentieth century. In a review of the year 1903 it simply says ‘December 3 – a quantity of human bones were found at Papillon Hall’. Frustratingly, the newspaper archive does not appear to have digitalised the edition for December 3rd 1903 which presumably contains more details of the discovery. Elsewhere, there are suggestions that the hauntings relate to the pre-Papillon history of the site and involve a lepers’ hospital, a monk and some buried treasure. Then there are the experiences of Captain Frank Belville, who lived at the hall for a while and encountered not the terrifying presence of David Papillon but a spectral young woman, ‘silver and half-hooded’, who he chased often but never caught (why is this giving ‘Carry on Cursing’ vibes?). Oh, and there’s a magical well too.

There may be a part three to follow but I truly think there’s enough material here to turn this tale of cursed shoes and haunted paintings into a full length motion picture.

Notes

  1. This nickname strikes me as a little strange given he moved to Acrise Park in Kent following his marriage to Mary Keyser at the age of 26.

Sources

Ghosts and hauntings in and around Leicestershire by Andrew James Wright

Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail

Leicester Daily Post

Reynolds’s Newspaper

Leicester Chronicle