TheVillage History

This story is related by a local woman whose family lived for many years in the cottage next to the chip shop at the bottom of Bear Hill, Alvechurch. In Part One, she told of her terrifying experiences as a child and a young woman – now we take up the tale after the cottage has been renovated by a new owner.

“The cottage looked so different that I began to think “Miss Morris” had moved out, but the following weeks revealed something different.

I told my sister and her husband how the cottage looked now, and they also asked Alan, the chip shop owner, for a look inside. He told them that two days previously, he had found a pile of bricks and rubble from the back yard in the middle of the kitchen. Again, all the doors were locked and bolted.

A few weeks later I spoke to Alan again, and he told me that the night before, he had finished work in the chip shop and decided to check the cottage before going home. As he stood in the living room he heard a loud banging which he thought was coming from the back door, but he then realised that it was coming from the middle of the kitchen floor. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

A month later he let the cottage to a family. They hadn’t lived there long before the woman started telling villagers that she heard weird noises, and doors would open of their own accord, even though they were a perfect fit in their new frames. The family only lived there for two months, but nobody told them about the cottage stories.

I was still asking around about the cottage, and talked to an old man who lived by the football ground. He said that when he was a child he heard stories of a woman who once lived in one of the three cottages leading up to the village hall. Apparently the villagers thought she was a witch, and ganged up on her and stoned her to death.

A few weeks later, Alan said that one of his assistants had gone into the storeroom above the chip shop. She came running downstairs, saying they should call the police because someone was banging around in the cottage. Alan got the key and ran round, but as soon as he unlocked the back door the noises stopped dead. Since that time, they have often heard banging in the cottage at night, varying in volume and length.

Just after this one of the school dinner ladies told her colleagues that she had just had a funny experience. When she was walking past the cottage she heard a baby crying, and it was such a weird-sounding cry that she stopped and looked up at the top windows.

She went into the chip shop and asked if Alan had a baby next door. He laughed and told her the cottage was empty. The dinner lady, who lived outside the village, had never heard any stories about the cottage.

At the beginning of May that year, Alan asked me if anything significant had happened in the cottage on April 29. He said that on that date, a carpenter was working in the kitchen of the cottage. The noises and banging started and became so loud that he left all his equipment in the cottage and refused to go back inside.

I am almost scared to look at the cottage when I walk past now. I once suggested to Alan that he should get an exorcist, but he said it would spoil the fun of what he called “The Drunken Witch”. He told me that although he tried to laugh about it, he was getting fed up with the noises and so he sold the cottage to his cousin.

I think it is reasonable to assume that Miss Morris was the accused witch who was stoned to death in the kitchen of the cottage. Perhaps she can’t rest in peace because she wasn’t guilty, but I do think she needs some help.

Some years later a woman who lived on the other side of the cottage complained to the chip shop about a lot of noise, as it had been going on for so long that it gave her a headache. The people in the shop had been serving customers all morning and had not heard anything. On her way back to her house, the lady realised the noise was in fact coming from the empty cottage.

Some other people who moved in for a short while complained that they could not warm the front bedroom up, and even the radiator in that room was always stone cold. They called in a heating repair man, who took it all apart, only to find it in perfect working order. When it was put back together it still wouldn’t get warm.

Another woman who moved in had the same problem, and also said that one night she was in bed in the front bedroom when she felt the bed go down as if someone had sat on it, and felt a weight on her legs.

The assistant in the chip shop was in the back yard one day when she heard the sound of cups clinking together as if someone was washing up. She realised it was coming from the kitchen of the cottage, and quickly went back to the shop. She knew that nobody had lived in the cottage for several weeks.”

* In Part One, we heard how a representative of the local historical society took some photos of the cottage’s original features, but unfathomably they failed to come out. We have now received this letter from Ian Hayes of Bordesley, adding further intrigue to the mystery. . .

“With reference to the article on Village Ghosts, I think I can add a few more details which make the circumstances even more weird.

I should explain that the person who wished to make a photographic record of the cottage for the Historical Society was my wife Rachel. Her camera, a Canon, had never failed and on this occasion produced excellent prints of every room – except the front bedroom.

When we examined her photographs a certain amount of “mickey-taking” took place, and I decided to have a go with my OM1 which, while ancient, was thoroughly reliable. I made a record of the house interior, the two or three pictures of the front bedroom being in the middle of the reel.

Those each side were fine but, you’ve guessed it, the pictures of the front bedroom were blank. Now work that one out.”

THE GREY PEOPLE AGAIN

Last month we also featured a story from Rectory Lane in Alvechurch, where a homeowner had encountered ghosts he called “the grey people”. Now a former resident has contacted The Village to add the following:

“I used to live next door to the man who has the “grey ghosts”, and I saw the little boy very often, though I never saw the lady.

In my house, things used to move around by themselves, and disappear without trace – sometimes we got so fed up that we’d say, “Oh for heaven’s sake, put it back!” and the item would appear in the middle of the floor.

The door latches also used to move by themselves even when there was no draught. However, we were never freaked out; we just got used to it.”

RENT-A-GHOST!

Former Alvechurch resident Tony Ponting tells a tale of some strange goings-on in a house on Bear Hill.

“In 1982, I rented a house on Bear Hill for about a year, not far from the old black and white building.

After a week or so, it became apparent that things were happening which couldn’t be explained – for instance, I would find the garage door unlocked when I knew full well that I’d locked it.

There was a locked room to which I did not have access, and I assumed this was because the landlord was using it for something, but I later learned that he hadn’t locked it at all. Other doors would open and close by themselves, and even the TV would turn itself on and off.

I was renting because my job had moved to the area, and we hadn’t yet found a permanent home nearby (we eventually settled in Barnt Green). At weekends my wife would visit, and at first I didn’t want to tell her about the strange experiences – but she soon noticed it too. She would tell me off for not doing a certain task, when I knew that I had.

My daughter also came up for a weekend, and in the middle of the night the radio in her bedroom suddenly came on with Radio Luxembourg – she’d never even listened to that station!

Another time when she was staying, my wife and I had gone out for the evening and she was alone in the house. The phone rang and she went to answer it – the only phone was on the half-landing on the stairs.

The caller was my son, and she was just telling him that we were out when she heard noises downstairs. Thinking that we had arrived home, she went downstairs to fetch us to the phone – but there was nobody there…

None of these experiences were unpleasant, just odd – and we never actually saw a ghost. However, all three of us knew that there was something weird going on, and we kept an open mind.

The only time I was scared was when I woke up one night to find a white figure standing in my room…I was just wondering what to say or do, when I realised it was not an apparition but my daughter, who was sleepwalking!

The lady next door kept asking me if I was getting on all right in the house, and eventually I asked her whether there was any special reason for her enquiries.

She went on to tell me that in the 1920s, the skeleton of a baby was discovered in the attic of the black and white house, so perhaps she was wondering if the whole street was haunted!“

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