Tempted to tell everyone I've found an entrance to a secret tunnel but the truth is shaping up to be much more interesting. A lost moated manor turned farm house & a deserted medieval village on the edge of Lichfield, near where Roman pottery and cartloads of bones were found.
I'm writing about witchcraft in Staffordshire and, as if by magic, I saw these marks in Tamworth today. The custodians of the castle believe they were made when James I came to stay and wanted some apotropaic protection for his accommodation.
Real events can be so much stranger than anything our imaginations can conjure up. An inquest took place here in Abbots Bromley in 1857 into the murder of a man whose family, that same year, had prosecuted a fake wizard they'd been paying to lift a curse from their cheese-kettle
The Chapel in the Wilderness in the Staffordshire Moorlands. We've got tomb raiding, sacrificial stones, headless skeletons, giants under the church & it's the final, final resting place of a man who was buried alive.
Been writing about Sarah Smith’s extraordinary gravestone in Wolstanton, Staffordshire, inscribed with a poem pointing to the identity of the person she (or someone acting on her behalf) alleged had poisoned her.
There's a farm called 'Old Hag' up in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Apparently it's because a woman who lived there used to turn herself into a hare so her husband could charge people to hunt her. This is peak Peak District folklore folks.
Self indulgent tweet sorry. I wrote a book about Staffordshire & the launch was five years ago tonight. Waterstones opened in Lichfield today and it's in there. Seeing something that I wrote in a bookshop is still something that makes me happy to this day.
Entrances to the crypt at Repton were sealed & within time, the existence of a mausoleum for Mercian kings was no longer even a folk memory.
It was rediscovered by chance in 1779, when a man digging a grave for the school's headmaster broke through its vaulted ceiling & fell in
Even the picturesque parts of Cannock Chase are creepy. The Stepping Stones came from the demolished Hangman's Gate at Stafford Gaol, where public executions were carried out until 1817. With true folk horror classics like this, who needs to invent tales of fantastical beasts eh?
Time works differently in the ancient lanes around Lichfield. It's not unusual to hear the footsteps of someone who trod the same track, years before you, alongside your own. Perhaps they hear yours too?
And can anyone else see that face? Pareidolia rather than paranormal I know
Today's my 20th anniversary of moving to Lichfield. To celebrate here's my favourite place at my favourite time of year. Late spring on
@pipegreentrust
, looking over towards
@LichfieldCath
. You can see why I love this city 💚
As yet no-one has been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation for these strange symbols on top of a tomb in St Michael's, Greenhill, Lichfield.
Just been told a huge brick vault has turned up beneath the front garden of a building on Beacon Street, Lichfield in the last few days. Could it be the cellar of the lost Lamb Inn or a wine merchant's vault I wonder?
Three years ago today I graduated aged 40. Three years later, I've just started a PGCE. If you'd told me five years ago that any of this would have happened, I wouldn't have believed you. So please excuse my self-indulgence but I think it's ok to be a bit proud of myself today
Murderer John Massey's body was gibbeted here at Bilstone, Leicestershire. From here it's said his skull was stolen and taken to a pub in Atherstone where it was lined with silver and is supposedly brought out on Shrove Tuesday each year, during the town's brutal ball game.
A new paperback version of my Little Book of Staffordshire is out now!
Currently working on Staffordshire book two, focusing on the curiosities of the county, plus a project specifically about the stories of Burntwood 📚
Today I'm going to be investigating claims Kings Bromley nr Lichfield was where the last Saxon king of England got married & where his grandmother-in-law Lady Godiva is buried (don't tell Coventry). Side quests include a haunted pub, a buried skull and a wish-granting witch tree
We visited Sandon in Staffordshire to find the supposed grave of a highwayman amongst other things. We failed on that front but we did find these two characters.
Just read about a metal detectorist who thought he heard a woman crying at the spot where he later dug up a gold ring. I think I'd have left it in the ground 😱
The beautiful Staffordshire village of Kings Bromley, once the summer residence of Lady Godiva, where a bloke found a skull buried in his garden and thought it was a coconut until he saw the eye sockets 💀
'Lichfield's Corporation seal must be the most ghastly of any in England, for the city arms exhibit a field strewn with corpses' - Halifax Evening Courier 23rd March 1938
One of my favourite spots in Staffordshire is the ford nr Shugborough where two rivers meet. The mighty Trent merges with the Sow 100m downstream from the famous Essex Bridge. Tolkein described it as, 'The valley of the two rivers where the grey bridge leaps the joining waters'
On July 8th 1728, Sir William Wolseley was returning from Lichfield in his carriage during a thunderstorm. As he reached the little stream at Longdon, now known as the Shropshire Brook a mill dam upstream burst.
Still very much trying to piece it together but looks like the remains of Stychbrook Farm stood here, just off a field in North Lichfield. There are suggestions it was once a moated manor house which sat alongside a now deserted medieval village.
When James I came to stay in Staffordshire in 1619 it's said he insisted on protective marks being added to the walls of Tamworth Castle to ward off the local witches
Le 14 juillet. This intriguing chapel-like building in the garden of a house on Nether Beacon is believed to have been built by French officers, on parole in Lichfield following the Naploeonic War.
Photos (c) Dixons Estate Agents
Just reading about an am-dram production in 1980's Stoke on Trent which was apparently cursed by a local witch. My favourite evidence cited for this is that 'principal characters were sent on courses by employers - never before known in their jobs'
At a Remembrance Service in Fradley, I saw someone who'd once sat where I was sitting had scratched their name on the seat in front.
When a list of the names of those from the village who died during the First World War was read, the name carved in front of me was amongst them.
Most underground tunnels exist only in the realms of folklore & fantasy but this stone on Beacon Street marks the entrance to one which really does run beneath Lichfield
Been sent over the cover for the paperback version of my first Staffordshire book (available 21st September!). I've also had to re-read it to check if any amendments are needed and to be fair, it's actually quite good ;)
Just had a mildly spooky experience in the church at Abbots Bromley which meant I nearly didn't stay to take a photo of the horns but I summoned up all of my Mercian courage ;)
I've found Noddy, a huge 800 year old oak, still guarding an ancient boundary in Colton thanks in no small part to an
@Lichfield_DC
tree officer who helped saved him from HS2 related destruction. I can't hug people these days but I am going to give this amazing ancient tree a hug
An ancient alley, one of several structures in landlocked Lichfield which far-fetched folklore claims is constructed using ship's beams.
What really shivers my timbers tho are stories the adjoining building has a staircase leading to a windowless attic room described as a 'cell'
Today is the feast day of St Chad, the patron saint of Lichfield, who died on this day in 672. On the outskirts of the city is a well, associated with the sacred spring where he was said to stand on a stone and pray. In recent years, the tradition of well dressing has restarted.
Intended to end up at Lichfield Cathedral at sunset but due to reasons which include looking for a marl pit it was after dark when I got there. This turned out to be a good thing 😍
A resident of a new estate in Lichfield asks if I've any idea why she and others are seeing shadowy figures on their streets. As it's built near the burial mounds of ancient kings, the city gallows and a Roman road, I do have a few suggestions...
Within this field near Lichfield is the spot where two of the most important roads in Roman Britain crossed. A milestone once marked the place where Watling Street met Ryknield St at Letocetum but it has long since disappeared. Eheu!
Richard II spent Xmas 1397 in Lichfield consuming 200 tuns of wine & 2000 oxen. Almost as much as me during Christmas 2021.
Two years later he was back as a prisoner at 'Lichfield Castle', where he unsuccessfully tried to escape from the window of the tower in which he slept
Medieval conduit head over a spring supplying Lichfield Cathedral Close with water for over 800 years. In the 1480s, Sir Humphrey Stanley smashed the cistern. The Cathedral repaired it so Lady Stanley smashed it up again, causing King Henry VII to have to wade into the argument
I found the grave of Roundhead turned Royalist Captain John Benbow who swapped sides in the Civil War & was shot at Shrewsbury Castle by his former comrades. I let out an audible 'Ooooh' & an old bloke sat on the bench behind me piped up 'Yep, you can't trust a Parliamentarian'
My best friend has just messaged to tell me her Dad has dug up some gravestones in his garden and now thinks his garden was part of the churchyard to the chapel across the road. She has mixed feelings about this ☠️
Told woman in the shop last night that I was going out out. The look on her face when I said it was to an archaeology talk at Lichfield Guildhall suggested there may have been some difference in opinion as to what going out out entails.
Everyone has heard of the Staffordshire Hoard but I suspect far fewer know of the Roman site in close proximity. During construction of the M6 Toll road, a large aisled building dating to the 2ndc was discovered here alongside Watling St, with a well and a cremation burial nearby
Lichfield: Hello! We are a pretty & quaint city in Staffordshire with lots of nice pubs & places to eat
Also Lichfield: We have dismembered people on our city seal and our name is supposed to mean the Field of the Dead
They should put me in charge of marketing this place eh? ;)
My first spooky story of the season takes us to the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.
This 18th coaching inn's most famous phantom is the Royalist Drummer Boy, stoned to death in the town stocks by a group of Roundheads before his broken body was dumped in the cellar here.
Love a request! The manager of Oxfam Books & Music in Lichfield has been in touch to ask if I know anything of their building's history. So far I know it was built around 1750 and he tells me the second floor is accessible only by stepladder. Wonder what else I can find...
Spending the last day of 2023 in Paradise...aka drinking cocktails in an old Tudor bakery in Lichfield. For once, I don't know any ghost stories about the place but def feels like there should be a tale or two amidst these old timbers. Anyway, cheers & happy New Year everyone! 🍹
Something lovely from Longdon. Just seen on FB that a couple living in the village have paid for 10 older people who are struggling to get out & about to have a Sunday roast delivered from the Swan with Two Necks every week from now until March 😊
View of The Bear from the Ancient High House in Stafford, one of the biggest timber framed buildings in the country, which according to one of the teenagers we encountered inside is 'bare wonky'.
When I moved to Lichfield 20 years ago, despite our political differences, I truly believed Mr Fabricant had the interests of our city at heart. These days I despair when I see the name of the place I live in and love associated with him. We need change
Seems there’s some speculation that I may be one of the 100+ Conservative MPs not standing.
Not so! I am proud to be selected to stand for re-election to the new
#Lichfield
constituency (which sadly loses Whittington to Tamworth, but reunites Wall with Hammerwich into Lichfield)
This time six years ago it was my book launch for The Little Book of Staffordshire. Currently waiting to hear back from publishers whether book number two is a goer...