The Hanged Man
During my last foray into research for my book on local Ghosts and Ghouls, I met a young lady who had numerous experiences with ghosts and spirits. It’s not unusual for some people to be more sensitive than others and see ,sense, or hear many things whilst others experience nothing. The young lady concerned was the daughter of tenant landlords and thus was often a child in environments that were often old and charged by a regular influx of people. At one location she was regularly awoken by dogs barking in the lounge of the pub and went to investigate.
On arrival, she was confronted by the dogs whimpering and running out and an ice-cold room, cold enough to frost her breath. What raised the hairs on her neck though, was the darkly dressed man floating under a door frame staring at her with his head tilted at an acute angle. The sightings became so vivid and regular that the family called in the famous clairvoyant of the time Doris Stokes. She came and contacted the spirit haunting the house.
She revealed he has been a highwayman, preying on travellers around the west of Uttoxeter and round Kingstone and Willslock before finally being captured by local vigilantes and, without trial, being hung from the beam in the public house, hauled up so his neck turned 90 degrees from his body as the rope tightened against the beam - hence his tilted head and staring eyes. Doris Stokes exorcised the agonized soul and he passed from this world never to be seen again.
Our unfortunate highwayman was not the only one in the area - the legendary Dick Turpin is said to have stayed at the Goats Head in Abbots Bromley.