I note from being nosey that another ghost walk materialises in Lichfield this evening. It’s inevitable that the streets of an ancient city known as the Field of the Dead are filled with stories of spectres and with groups of people who want to hear them.

I’ve been interested in the spooky side of life (or should that be death?) ever since I was a small child, and I think I can pinpoint the moment my interest was piqued by the paranormal. I remember a family holiday in Wales with my Mum reading aloud from a guidebook, telling us the tale of how the Bells of Aberdyfi still ring out from the drowned kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod and a visit to Devil’s Bridge in Aberystrwyth that same holiday sealed the deal. Although not with Old Nick, I hope. Forty years later, I know exactly which tales float my boat, or more aptly ghost ship, and the sceptics out there will probably explode at my next sentence. My supernatural stories need substance. There has to be something tangible in a tale that makes me believe that maybe, just maybe, it might be true…

Much closer to home but I suspect beyond the realms of any city ghost tour, let me take you to the lanes of Leomansley and the winter of 1981. The Lichfield Mercury reported that over a period of four years, an elderly woman in black had been seen sporadically by several residents in the area surrounding Christ Church. Bill Thompson described her as five foot tall, aged around seventy, wearing spectacles and a black shawl over Victorian style clothes (what else?) and swore he’d seen her walk through his hallway wall and into the coal shed. One resident, Carol Lawrence, saw her whilst camping on the fields behind her cul-de-sac, and described her as ‘gliding towards the church’. Another haunt of hers seems to be the cottage on the edge of the church yard. Someone contacted me to say that during their time there, this mysterious lady of Leomansley was seen looking out of the cottage’s window and a friend of mine who lived there in the early 2000s experienced unexplained bangs, self-unlocking doors and the smell of recently extinguished but non-existent candles. The cottage was originally built to be the residence of the school master or mistress of Christ Church school. It later became a lodge for Beacon Place, the now demolished mansion whose grounds make up much of what is now Beacon Park, and then was home to the clerk and sexton at Christ Church for at least seventy years. Will we ever work our how the story of our woman in black fits into this local history?

Her presence isn’t the only peculiar thing associated with the area. In the 1970s, when the houses around Christ Church were being modernised, a drainage trench was built in one of the gardens. That Friday evening, the sound of a crying child kept most of the residents awake for most of the night. When the sobs started again in the early hours of Sunday morning, Bill Thompson, a Mr Coleman and one of his sons became convinced someone had abandoned a baby and formed a search party. They scoured the gardens, the graveyard, and the grounds of Beacon Place (now the football pitches of Beacon Park) but found nothing. On Sunday night, the cries were heard again and the search resumed with the same result. On Monday, the trench was filled in and the night time noises were never heard again. Now, if I were to put on my sceptic’s cardigan, I would say the work had disturbed a den of foxes. I’ve heard their eerie screams echoing through the air on a winter’s night in Leomansley and, if I didn’t know better, I too would be convinced it was something more sinister. But, therein lies the flaw in my rational explanation. Are we to believe an entire street of residents, living in what was a rural setting back then, would not have recognised these nocturnal noises and been able to distinguish them from the cries of a distressed child?

I do know one thing. As summer turns to autumn and the nights draw in, when I’m walking through this part of Lichfield, I always have to wrap that sceptic’s cardigan around myself a little tighter to stop myself from shivering.

Sources

Lichfield Mercury 14th October 1881

Lichfield Mercury 28th September 1883

Lichfield Mercury 11th March 1910

Lichfield Mercury 6th January 1911

Lichfield Mercury 31st December 1981

Lichfield Mercury 24th May 1929