Haunted Staffordshire E-Book

Philip Solomon

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 149

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, manifestations and related supernatural phenomena to first-hand encounters with ghouls and spirits, this collection of stories contains both new and well-known spooky stories from around Staffordshire. Compiled by the Wolverhampton Express & Star's own psychic agony uncle, Philip Solomon, this terrifying assortment of tales includes details of long-reported poltergeist activity at Sinai House, strange goings-on at the Gladstone Pottery Museum and even a reported visitation from author J.R.R. Tolkien in Leek! Haunted Staffordshire is sure to fascinate everyone with an interest in the area's haunted history.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren, Liam and Elise, who both mean the world to me. A special acknowledgement is also due to my wife, Kath, who helped with my research, typing up of the manuscript, photography and so much more. Without her help, this book would not have been possible.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

one    A Brief History of Haunted Staffordshire

two    Ghost Stories

three    Creepy Goings-on in Cannock

four    Chadsmoor and Beyond

five    Paranormal Phenomena in Lichfield and Further Afield

six    Spooky Events in and around Stafford

Bibliography

Copyright

Acknowledgements

All libraries and all contributors, too numerous to mention, who provided stories for this book, I acknowledge and thank you all.

I would also like to thank the following:

Lesley Smith and the team at Tutbury Castle for pictures of Tutbury Castle

Martyn Boyes and Haunted Happenings for pictures of Tutbury Castle

Liz West and Alton Towers for pictures of Alton Towers

Jo Pritchard for the picture of Tamworth Castle

Jenny Brown for her pictures of Middleton Hall

Karen Westwood and Team Prism for the picture of Drakelow Tunnels

Thanks also to Graham Parnell Walsh for his drawings and artistic impressions.

Introduction

LET’S start with a question – what is a ghost? The answer is that we don’t really know what it is. The word is one we use to describe something that we cannot explain. Electricity is not, for example, a tangible thing like a building. We can describe what a building is, but all we can really say about electricity is that it is energy. The same, I suppose, applies to ghosts. We know something about the way they behave, but we can’t really explain this phenomena, just as we can’t explain of how electrons move around the way they do to make electricity; they just do.

In my experience, an upset or crisis can lead to unusual mental effects. For every case of an apparition, there are hundreds of others that involve telepathy. So let’s consider telepathy – a phrase actually coined in 1882 by the Society of Psychical Research to describe the transfer of information from one place to another without the use of any of the known senses. Today we know a good deal about the way in which telepathy works, and we have even found ways of demonstrating it in the laboratory under controlled conditions. A feature of telepathy is that it operates regardless of distance. It seems reasonable, therefore, to suppose that since space does not inhibit its effects, neither does time. If this is so, then some haunting symptoms would become a little easier to understand.

Some hauntings suggest that when people are in a state of great crisis, a kind of ‘tape-recording’ may be made of their respective states. Those sensitive to ethereal auras, such as psychics, clairvoyants, and clairaudients, can see or play back that ‘tape’ and see it repeated again and again, and thus an apparition forms.

Unfortunately, I have to say that at the present time we have no understanding of how this recording or play-back mechanism comes about. We can, however, assume that a ghost is a phenomenon that may result perhaps from two causes: a) a living person or b) a memory record. We may not always need both causes and one may indeed create the other. We also know that some psychic phenomena can be created to order with a little practice. I have sat at séances myself and also with other psychics that leave me in no doubt that this is possible.

A Ouija board – a tool occasionally used during a séance.

Let us now go through the various types of haunting. We can see, or rather I hope you will see, that some of them are easier to ascribe to one cause or the other. However, I shall now try to summarise for you the top five reasons behind a haunting.

1 – Apparitions

Examples of apparitions have been reported in 50 per cent of the cases that I have personally investigated. Some apparitions have appeared so genuinely lifelike that those who see them have believed they were living people. Others have been the more transparent, typically ghost-like apparitions. However, in the case of lifelike spectres, the identity of a ghost is often inferred at the accord of the witness; thereby it cannot be ruled out that the human mind could indeed be playing mischievous tricks. We should always be aware of that fact when investigating ghosts and the paranormal in the wider context.

Generally speaking, our eyes serve us extremely well and send true visions back to the brain. However, there are times when one’s visual perception of things is not always what it seems. Many psychologists, for instance, have turned to illusions in which perceptions of things are confusing and misleading to get a better knowledge and understanding of that process. Scientists, for many years, have studied geometrical illusions, and, despite various individuals hypothesising explanations, no one has ever really reached a situation where they know exactly how they work. I do think it is important when considering ghosts and hauntings, in the wider context, to be aware of these ‘tricks of the eyes’. However, all this aside, when similar apparitions are seen independently by different witnesses, the ‘all in the mind’ or ‘trick of the eyes’ theories begin to look rather weak.

2 – Unexplained Footsteps

There have been numerous cases of people reporting the sound of footsteps – far too many cases, in my opinion, for us to ascribe all of them to misunderstanding, misinterpretation of sound and so on, and a lot of them have led me to conduct an immediate investigation. Footsteps are often heard by the most down-to-earth people; policemen, firemen, teachers, school caretakers, librarians, and so on. In fact, this is the one most objective of the various types of hauntings and of course is one of the strongest cases for the memory record there is.

3 – The Movement of Objects

The unexplained movement of objects, large and small, has been reported time and time again in some form or another in around 25 per cent of the cases I have investigated. Doors that open and shut on their own are common, as are vases that fly across rooms, and electronic equipment that switches itself on and off. Now the opening and closing of doors can sometimes have an explanation – subsidence in the building, badly fitting frames causing the door to open on its own, and so on. The switching on and off of electronic equipment, such as a television or a radio, however, can be a little more difficult to explain.

4 – Cold Spots

This seems to be a wholly objective phenomena and it is one I have witnessed myself time and time again. With the rapidly-increasing availability of video recording equipment and facilities for infrared heat-sensitive photography, there is a reasonable chance that one of these days one of these cold spots may produce a ghost for us on film. Time and time again, ghostly happenings and hauntings have happened around areas known as cold spots.

A Halloween event at the Black Country Living Museum.

5 – Dates or Times of the Year

A question I am often asked is whether there are special times of the year when ghosts can be seen. I am not entirely convinced that there are special times when ghosts appear, but many experts insist there are certain nights of the year when a special magic exists, if you will, which allows spirits or ghosts to return to the earth plane in greater numbers.

The most famous of all dates is probably 31 October – All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween as we call it today. The origins of Halloween lie in a pagan festival of fire and death, which highlighted the powers of darkness. It marked the beginning of winter and the passing away of the old year. It is said that this is the time when the dead abound in search of other lost souls and in Staffordshire, especially in the country areas, offerings of food and drink were left for them as they passed westwards towards the direction of the ‘death’ of the sun and sunset.

In the seventh century, All Hallows’ Eve became the eve of All Saints Day, which was a feast day to celebrate the various saints and martyrs and was most probably done to make the pagan festival of the dead more akin with Christianity.

All Souls’ Day is a celebration in the Roman Catholic faith and is held on 2 November, when prayers are offered for the souls of all of those who have passed to the higher life. Perhaps these prayers have something to do with the many reports year after year of ghostly apparitions around this time and maybe they do help, for it is a fact that more ghosts are reported around Halloween than any other time of the year.

The only other day that is reputed to be anywhere near as magical or haunted as Halloween is Christmas Eve, when many ghostly appearances are reported, some very famous ones at that, including the ghost of Queen Anne Boleyn walking the bridge that spans the River Eden at Hever Castle in Kent, and the ghost of Charles Dickens in the burial grounds of Rochester Castle, also in Kent. In recent years I have been told of a headless horseman who annually appears in various parts of Staffordshire and of the ghost of an old hag that appears in and around Cannock.

However, 20 June, mid-Summer’s eve, is also historically reported to be a good time to see ghosts and it is claimed that many people, especially in Staffordshire and certain parts of the Black Country, apparently used to cast various charms to attract spirits and fairies in years gone by. The 12th of February is the anniversary date of the execution of Lady Jane Grey, and there have been reports of cries and moans being heard in Enville village, which is quite close to Kinver. Perhaps the ghostly sounds are made by members of her family, who are known to have lived at Enville Hall before and after the death of the ‘nine day Queen’.

The 5th of November, Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, is also alleged to be a great night for ghost spotting. These bonfires were originally lit for pagan reasons and had nothing at all to do with Bonfire Night as we know it today. Perhaps the many lights all over the country that reach up to the sky are what really attract ghosts and spirits. Originally, these bonfires provided light and heat through the dark winter months in Celtic countries.

The author looking for ghostly fingerprints.

If you are interested in looking for ghosts at the so-called ‘special’ times of the year, it might be worthwhile to look at the numerous historical dates and anniversaries that seem to cause the appearance of ghosts on a particularly significant day. But you have to remember that ghosts do not appear on demand and the worst possible thing to do if you really want to see a ghost is to try to see one, for it is highly likely that you won’t! There is a logical explanation for this, as many psychic experiences occur when people are in a relaxed or calm state, sometimes just before they drop off to sleep or just before they wake up, or even perhaps while daydreaming. Often, hauntings occur when people are going about their everyday, routine jobs or chores.

When we are considering supernatural phenomena, we should remember that we have two quite different modes of consciousness, and which one we are in depends on which side of our brain is dominant. If the left side is in charge, we reject any information we cannot explain. If we come across something improbable in this state, such as a ghost, we persuade ourselves that there must be a normal explanation even when that is less probable than the actual phenomenon itself!

When the right side gets a chance to take over, most likely when we are in a relaxed state, then what happens can be very interesting. For many people, the quickest way to relax the left side of the mind is to drink a small amount of alcohol. In this way, we are far more open to new impressions and probably in one of the best possible states of mind in which to experience a ghostly encounter.

A lot of investigators of the paranormal, such as parapsychologists and ghost hunters, have given me quite a lot of stick for suggesting that some of the best evidence for the existence of ghosts has been found by amateurs with a very simple kit; this can be made up from everyday items around the home, such as a tape recorder, a camera with a built-in flash, adhesive tape, a good thermometer and spare batteries. Of course, there is some very technical equipment on the market, such as electromagnetic field meters, electronic thermometers, night-scopes, light intensifying binoculars, thermal imaging cameras and many other things that have become available to purchase in more recent years. Personally, I just don’t think they are worth the money, and they certainly don’t guarantee that you will have a paranormal experience.

The worst possible attitude towards ghosts and hauntings, in my experience, is to be in a state of fear – which is strange really, because most people love to be scared. But we enjoy watching horror films, for example, because we know it is safe. We know that Boris Karloff or Dracula will not step out of our television sets and shake us by the scruff of our necks – we are in the position to switch it off and exercise complete control over the situation. We may be scared during the film but that fright is only temporary and it is explainable.

However, we are now considering frightening things which happen in real life, although a lot of us refuse to accept that it is possible even if they have happened to us, for it creates a kind of mental conflict within us. Aside from very rare cases, there is no real reason to be frightened of anything a ghost might do. Are you really scared by the sight of an old hooded monk or a Grey Lady or even the Highwayman of Kinver and Whittington. Are you really scared of them just because they are dead, or because they represent the unknown? Confront your fears! Read on and learn of the many ghosts, hauntings and legends of Staffordshire…

Philip Solomon, 2012

1

A Brief History of Haunted Staffordshire

HISTORICALLY speaking, Staffordshire included Wolverhampton, Walsall and West Bromwich, which were taken away from Staffordshire in 1974 to be placed in the new county of the West Midlands, leaving the administrative area of Staffordshire as a narrow southward protrusion that runs west to the border of Worcestershire, further on to the city of Stoke-on-Trent. In the 1990s, however, Stoke-on-Trent was removed to form a unitary authority, but still remains, and is considered by most, as part of Staffordshire. In its ancient history, it was broken down into the five areas of Seisdon, Totmonslow, Cuttlestone, Offlow and Pirehill.

It is believed 913 was the year when Stafford, became a fortified military stronghold for the capital of Mercia under the rule of Queen Aethelflaed. The county is symbolised by the famous Stafford Knot (often mistakenly called the Staffordshire Knat), which can be seen on an Anglican stone cross that dates from approximately 805. The cross still stands proud in Stoke churchyard, so the symbol of the knot may be considered either an ancient Mercian symbol or one that was adopted from ancient Celtic and Christian traditions, which had been brought to Stafford by Lindisfarne monks in the year 650.

Staffordshire is many things to many people; from the area’s close links to the industrialised Black Country in the south of the county, to the more craggy regions to the north and its moorlands, which have beautiful country regions; each place still manages to retain a sense of individual pride. One famous son and writer of Staffordshire was Arnold Bennett, who came up with the phrase ‘the five towns for the potteries’ and describes the county very well in his book, The Old Wives’ Tale. To the south of the county lies the famous Cannock Chase, where, historically, kings and princes hunted, and there are numerous ghost stories and legends told within the pages of that book of this most beautiful place.

Much of Staffordshire to the south of the Trent was originally part of the huge forest making up the royal forests of Cannock and Kinver, together with the Needswood Forest, where the legends of Robin Hood, and his ‘merry men’, made their mark. Most of the forest and its trees have been cut down over the years, a great deal of it in the Middle Ages, to smelt ironstone.

The Romans also played their part in Staffordshire history and helped to create legends and wonderful romantic stories, including haunted ones too. But before them, Staffordshire was lived in and revered by people who prayed to the earth and the great goddess Earth Mother. To the north of the area, Brigit still has legends that retain stories of her reign at the Bridestones, whereas Woden is mentioned in the name Wednesbury.