Moon’s Moat: Murder, Mystery and the Ghost of Lady Moon

On Halloween night in 2009, a woman dressed as the Corpse Bride entered a costume competition at the Foxlydiate Arms in Redditch. The organiser remembered speaking to her. Some of the people watching remembered seeing her too. Others insisted there had been nobody there at all. Then the guest list was checked. The strange Halloween encounter is only one part of the Foxlydiate story. Long before the pub was built, travellers were already telling stories about a ghostly vehicle heard racing through the darkness. It became known as the Flying Hearse, and according to an old warning, anyone who actually saw it would be dead within a year. In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, we explore the haunted history and folklore of Foxlydiate, including the Corpse Bride, the Flying Hearse, the White Lady, the mysterious figure known as Tom, and the real-life murder of Hannah Middleton in 1902. Which parts are history? Which are folklore? And what really happened inside the Foxlydiate Arms on Halloween night? Music used “Chasing Ghosts” – Kindred Spirit Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/6n58iB0o66y2o062ypvuRy?si=kIc5luYtRQSG68LecMUmEA Explore more haunted Redditch The Redditch Ghost Walk: History, Folklore and Haunted Places from the Old Town to the Kingfisher Centre – available on Amazon. Redditch Ghost Walk information and tickets: ghosttales.co.uk/ghostwalk See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1995, a family living in Headless Cross, Redditch, Worcestershire, began seeing a very tall man inside their home. He was dressed completely in black, appeared to wear a wide-brimmed hat and had large buckles on his shoes that seemed to catch the light. At first, the sightings were brief. Then the activity became more intense. Banging and crashing began inside the house, and one night the man of the house went downstairs believing somebody had broken in. The moment he entered the large living room, the noise stopped. At the far end of the room, beside the kitchen door, a figure was standing there. The family left the house that night. The following morning they asked a local vicar for help. What happened when he returned to bless the house became one of the strangest parts of the entire Headless Cross haunting. In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, I investigate the Tall Man of Headless Cross and look at the history of this part of Redditch, including the ancient routes that once crossed the area. There is also a much older ghost story connected with the road from Headless Cross towards Tardebigge. Redditch-born writer Sir James Yoxall remembered hearing the legend during his nineteenth-century childhood. Travellers were said to hear the sound of wheels, a cracking whip, horses and rattling harness moving through the darkness. Yet when they looked towards the sound, nothing was there. It became known as The Flying Hearse. There is no evidence connecting the Flying Hearse with the Tall Man. They are separate stories, generations apart, but both form part of the strange folklore surrounding this corner of Redditch. A haunted house, an unidentified figure, a terrified family and an old Worcestershire road with its own ghost story. This is The Tall Man of Headless Cross.

Redditch has more than one White Lady story. From the woman seen at the windows of Beech House on Church Green, to a pale figure in woodland near Batchley and strange sightings around Smallwood, the same image appears again and again: a woman dressed in white. In this Dark Folklore episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, Clem Dallaway explores the stories behind Redditch’s White Ladies, including the mysterious woman said to walk near Beech House, the figure seen among the trees, and the woman reportedly spotted picking flowers in a garden at night. Are these separate ghosts, mistakes of perception, or part of a much older folklore pattern that keeps repeating itself? The episode also looks at how White Lady legends grow, why ghost stories so often attach tragic backstories to unidentified female apparitions, and the idea of residual hauntings. Explore more of Redditch’s haunted history in my book, The Redditch Ghost Walk: History, Folklore and Haunted Places from the Old Town to the Kingfisher Centre. Book: https://amzn.eu/d/093Shix6 Redditch Ghost Walk: Monday to Thursday throughout October Tickets: £8.50 Proceeds support Redditch Local History Museum https://ghosttales.co.uk/ghostwalk Music connected with Ghost Tales by the Fireside: Among The Graves – Clem Dallaway https://open.spotify.com/track/4hvMSzbWhO5U7cB1SONmAU?si=8gbSnYFTQXyD_cUnGYmUew The Dark One – Clem Dallaway https://open.spotify.com/track/58IwqgxMwiwedfWHF8wtyl?si=Bwv7d1RcQJKLDegEp2gl-g Chasing Ghosts – Kindred Spirit Clem Dallaway on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4q4UZstxVT6XbsOkBkfP6f Website: https://ghosttales.co.uk See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A family moved into an ordinary house on Abbeydale in Redditch, Worcestershire, in 1996. Almost immediately, they began experiencing things they could not explain. A scruffy middle-aged man appeared repeatedly in the garden before being seen walking through the house and straight through the staircase. A young child spoke to someone called Albert. Another talked about an imaginary friend named Ballot, shortly before the family began seeing the apparition of a little girl in a white dress. As the years passed, the activity became increasingly strange. Objects vanished and reappeared in unexpected places. Unfamiliar jewellery appeared inside the house. Footsteps crossed empty rooms. A woman was seen in the hallway. Members of the family heard voices belonging to people who had not spoken. A paranormal investigation later introduced the names Charlotte and Albert, along with the suggestion that some kind of supernatural “portal” crossed the house. The family moved in thirty years ago. They are still there. And in 2026, the activity is still happening. In this episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside, we explore one of Redditch’s longest-running modern haunting accounts alongside the changing landscape of Abbeydale, the farmland that existed before the estate and the much older history surrounding the nearby Arrow Valley and Bordesley Abbey. This episode forms part of the October season of haunted Redditch stories. You can explore more of Redditch’s haunted history on the Redditch Ghost Walk, running Monday to Thursday throughout October. Tickets are £8.50 per person, with proceeds going to Redditch Local History Museum. ghosttales.co.uk/ghostwalk My book, The Redditch Ghost Walk: History, Folklore and Haunted Places from the Old Town to the Kingfisher Centre, is available on Amazon. Music featured in this episode includes Chasing Ghosts by Kindred Spirit which will be released on 12th of October alongside original music by Clem Dallaway, including Among The Graves and The Dark One. Among The Graves — ISRC QZNWR2463170 The Dark One — ISRC QZWFS2504572 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why are so many of Redditch's ghostly monks described as wearing brown when the Cistercians of Bordesley Abbey were known as the White Monks?