Sunday 13th August 2023
Moreton Corbet Castle – in the wilds of the Shropshire countryside – is a location that I first heard about in the late 1980’s. This was via one of the ‘Halloween Ghost Hunts’ that the (now sadly defunct) ‘Beacon Radio’ station – in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton – was quite famous for, back then. On the broadcast in question, ‘roving reporters’ were featured… having been sent out to different, allegedly haunted, places – within a reasonable, fairly local, distance – and ‘checked on’ over the course of the broadcast, etc. On the show in question – which I still have a recording of, on cassette tape – White Ladies Priory and Lilleshall Abbey were also featured…
Following the 80’s radio introduction, further data was gleaned through a 90’s love affair with Shrewsbury and a number of Shropshire ghost related books picked up in the Tourist Information Office there. The first, written accounts of the location seen were in the charming, booklet-style publications by Ascott-Davies… ‘Haunted Shropshire’ and ‘Castles Of Shropshire’. Other publications followed, though, it has to be said that the associated ghostlore (at very best) falls into the ‘legendary ghost’ category… being solely made up of somewhat archaic myth.
Despite the reasonably close proximity of Moreton Corbet to the Wolverhampton area, this also happened to be one of those locations that I’d never actually ‘got to see in the flesh’ for myself until very recent times. My first-ever visit was actually on a miserable, damp night in late November, 2020! (Of course, despite the weather, I was just elated to finally get to see the locality!) Instead of my re-capping on the date and details concerned here, however, I’ll just invite visitors to also take a look at the other, related, previous posts on this blog by clicking HERE and HERE.
Coming to the point of this ‘fresh’ post on this topic… a second visit to Moreton Corbet was made on the 21st of February this year; thankfully a ‘dry’ Sunday evening, this time! The dying light of what had been a bright afternoon also afforded me a magical, eerie glimpse inside the deserted church, of St. Barts, next to the ruins too!
Concerning a little, fresh information on the more ‘supernatural’ aspects of the location itself: as well as the legend mentioned in the blog links above, I’ve also recently seen a reference concerning a ‘ghost’ said to roam the lanes leading from Moreton Corbet to nearby Shawbury. Emulating a fair amount of other Shropshire ghostlore, this apparition – dubbed ‘The Multi-Coloured Witch’ - allegedly roams the neighbouring lanes and ‘attaches herself to passing vehicles’… completely enveloping them! Noted as a mainly ‘daytime’ phenomenon, the ghost is alleged to ‘stay with the car’ for around a mile or so, before finally disappearing!?
I have to
admit that I find the latter both bizarre and most intriguing, as, in looking into
experiences with another Shropshire ghost - that of the infamous ‘Madam Pigott’,
in Chetwynd – I was contacted some years ago by a motorist who describes having
had an almost identical encounter to that suggested here. In that experience, however, the phenomenon
occurred nowhere near Moreton Corbet, but in a rural setting a couple of miles
North of Chetwynd…
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