Eventually, Seaman WS Cowan regained consciousness & the cross-bred collie was given a silver collar & shield. The heroic hound’s name was Lassie so was this Dorset dog was the inspiration behind its famous Hollywood namesake?

On New Years Day 1915, HMS Formidable was struck by a torpedo. The dead were laid out in the cellar of the Pilot Boat Inn & the landlord’s dog came & sat by one of the bodies, licking its face.

I do not count the hours unless they are bright

Wrote a blog post about Muckley Corner and how it might have got that strange name. It’s a place that’s been driving me crazy for a loooong time. Link here lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/07/28/m...

Well I was going to go and sit by the brook but this bunch of local youths beat me to it

Until the 1970s, a milestone stood at the junction but I’ve heard it was snaffled for use in a nearby stile. To be fair, it wouldn’t be the first bit of Roman stone to be recycled around here.

A track in a field that takes you back in time to the Roman Empire. This is a part of Watling Street, just outside the settlement of Letocetum, and and somewhere along this short stretch was the junction with Ryknield Street.

Last week a friend and I spotted this sort of statue in an otherwise empty shop. Today, it’s broken free and heading out the door. Luckily, it’s not looking at me.

The War Stone in Birmingham is believed to have been a boundary or hoar stone, giving its corrupted name to the street it now sits on. Originally the road was called ‘Deadman’s Lane’ which seems spookily prescient given a cemetery was consecrated here in 1848.

The Reservoir Part II of my ghost story inspired by Staffordshire folklore Read here >> lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/05/12/t...

Part I of a new ghost story I wrote. Part fact, part folklore, part my fanciful imagination. Read here >> lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/05/10/t...

Just started another attempt at spooky semi-fiction set in Staffordshire. It’s about Kitty Fisher, and the submerged bridge at Blithfield Reservoir which bears her name. Doing some research and turns out a skull was found on the banks of the water in 1991. Sometimes stories just write themselves…

My latest LL post on a lost country house in the Midlands and its infamous curse. Read here >> lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/05/05/c...

The Old Church Tower at Shenstone is all that survives of a medieval church built on a Saxon, and possible earlier, site. It was once a ruin, romantic but at real risk of collapse, until a group of locals formed a group to save it. It’s one of my favourite places in Staffordshire.

Shoe outlines carved into the lead of the old tower at Shenstone. Were these just a way to say, ‘I was here’? or something more symbolic?

Work to transform the old library building into apartments has apparently revealed human remains. I assume this means the cemetery of the Franciscan Friary over the road occupied an area larger than I had thought. Or there’s been a murder. I’ll update on the body in the library when I know more…

Scones and spooks

Lush with wild garlic and primroses, the last of the daffs and some very keen bluebells, this is the churchyard of St Michael’s on Greenhill, Lichfield which is very much living up to its name

I have found the best fence in Lichfield, if not Staffordshire.

Cross in Hand Lane, Lichfield is the old road to Stafford. A holloway haunted by pilgrims heading for the cathedral and highwaymen headed for the gallows.

The brilliant Shenstone History Group have sent me photos of a child’s shoe found up the chimney of one of the village’s oldest cottages. Anyone out there able to date it?

Does anyone else’s local litter picking group find folk horror-esque art installations whilst out doing their good deeds or is it just a Lichfield thing?

I do love a day out in Birmingham

St Chad’s, Lichfield glowing beneath a rainbow in the sunshine and showers. Seems almost symbolic.

It is! Plus our city seal features three dismembered kings. The last one is on the railway bridge at the City Station to welcome everyone to the Field of the Dead

Love a mystery which sounds like it could be the start of an antiquarian ghost story. Sometime ago a woman arrived at Middleton Hall and handed over this medieval bell. She said it belonged to the house and so she was returning it before leaving without further explanation.

Written about the time we accidentally ended up in Acton Trussell and found that a Roman villa had been accidentally discovered beneath the local church. lichfieldlore.co.uk/2026/01/02/t...

The Ruins at Shugborough where a Druid sits above a 250 year old folly, built by an Earl of Lichfield from the remains of the palace of the Bishops of Lichfield.

Something else which endures is the story that this crossing at the confluence of the Rivers Trent and Sow was constructed by Robert Devereux for Elizabeth I when she was staying with him for the week at Chartley. Shame he burned his bridges with her in the end.

Fourteen of the original forty arches of the Essex Bridge at Shugborough survive making it one of the longest in the land.