GHOSTLY goings-on in Tamworth have been detailed in a new book.

Among the many tales of shock, horror and spookiness are stories of the ghost of a soldier in Fazeley, a wife killer in Hopwas, the founder of Rawlett School and a Tamworth pawnbroker, to name but a few.

Paranormal Staffordshire has been written by Amington man and amateur historian Anthony Poulton-Smith, who used archived material from the Herald for his research.

Among the tales in the book are one of a hairdressing salon in Colehill where staff regularly used to hear a man’s laughter.

The shop is on the site of the former home of Tamworth benefactor William McGregor, and the chuckles are believed to be his ghost.

Also said to haunt Colehill is the ghost of Daddy Poppit, a Tamworth pawnbroker renowned as a miser.

After his death, the property became a dentists, where instruments would be flung around the room by a ghostly presence, believed to be that of the old miser who was angered at not being able to take his fortune with him. when he died.

Two pupils at Rawlett School were said to have seen their school’s founder Rev John Rawlett, who, on his death in 1686, bequeathed monies to provide a school, a library and various charities to Tamworth.

Rawlett would not have recognised the school that bears his name, but more than three centuries after his death two pupils claimed to have recognised their founder roaming the corridors.

Another story featured in the book is Tamworth Castle’s ghost of the White Lady, said to watch from the battlements of the castle – from where in life, according to the legend, she witnessed the death of her lover, wicked knight of the Round Table, Sir Tarquin.

By all accounts she had been brought to Tamworth, hotly pursued by Sir Lancelot, who vanquished Tarquin in a fight in Lady Meadow.

High above the scene, the grieving lady wept from the battlements and, to this day, still mourns for her lost love.

The Fox pub in Hopwas is said to be haunted by a wife murderer. A stocky man dressed in tweed has been spotted in what was a doorway to the bar.

The pub consists of three cottages knocked into one building and a former occupant is said to have murdered his wife, cut up her body and hidden her remains in a drainpipe at the end of the group of buildings, roughly where the present-day kitchens are.

Other problems listed at the pub are lights turning themselves on and off and locked windows being found open.

At Bank House on Lady Bank, once the site of Tamworth’s mint, a woman wearing clothes from a bygone age was seen feeling her way along the stone walls, as if trying to find an exit that was no longer there.

This happened on more than one occasion, until the owners made structural changes to the building and the woman may have finally found her way out.

Also detailed in the book are goings on at the 16th century Moat House, where two ghosts are mentioned – one of a women in a grey cloak and another called Emily who is said to have been inadvertently locked in there and died in a candle fire.

In Elford in the late 1800s, the Rev Francis Pagett described in a letter, an event which had happened in the rectory some years earlier on a winter’s afternoon, when he saw a friend’s image in the mist – only later to discover that the friend had died at the same time as he saw the apparition.

These are just a handful of over 100 accounts of sightings across Staffordshire.

Paranormal Staffordshire is published by Amberley at £9.99.

Have you had a ghostly encounter in Tamworth? email helen.machin@cintamworth.co.uk