May 2011 Archives

The Ghosts of Aston Hall

By Joanne Morris on May 11, 11 07:10 AM

A place I like to visit from time to time is Aston Hall, a beautiful Jacobean mansion set amidst the grimy factories and and victorian terraces of inner city Birmingham. Of course when it was built,nearly 400 years ago, Brum was little more than a collection of cottages and metal bashing workshops. The Hall would have been surrounded by green fields and lush countryside. It must have been quite a sight!

Back in those days the big man in these parts was Sir Thomas Holte. Rich and powerful, a close friend of King James. Holte began building Aston Hall in 1618 and it took over twenty years to complete. History does not paint a very flattering portrait of Sir Thomas. Cruel and violent, as a young man he embedded a hatchet into the skull of an incompetent cook. Sadly I cannot find any reports of a ghostly cook wandering around with an axe sticking out of his head. Now that would be a ghost worth seeing!