A ghostly White Lady is said to roam around the lanes in Longnor – the spirit of a young lady who drowned herself in Black Pool (which is said to be bottomless) after being disappointed in love. The pool is now a small copse.

In 1881, a well-known collector of folklore, called Charlotte Sophia Burne, visited Longnor to gather the story of the White Lady. She chatted to a man called Hughes, the Vicar’s servant, who told her how, as a young man, he has met the ghost as he crossed the narrow footbridge:

“I sid [saw] ’er a-cumin’, an’ I thinks, ’ere’s a nice young wench. Well, thinks I, who she be, I’ll gi’e ’er a fright. I was a young fellow then, yo’ know – an’ I waited till ’er come up close to me, right i’ the middle o’ the bridge, an’ I stretched out my arms, so – an’ I clasped ’er in ’em, tight – so. An’ theer was nothin’!”

According to Hughes, the White Lady also appeared at a local dance at a place Hughes refers to as ‘the Villa’:

“Joe Wrigley, he told me. There was a great party held in the garden, and he was playing the fiddle. And they were all daincin’, an’ she come an’ dainced, all in white. An’ everyone was saying, ‘What a nice young ’ooman – Here’s the one for me – I’ll have a daince wi’ ’er’ – and so on, like that. And she dainced and dainced wi’ ’em, round i’ the ring, but they could’n’ niver ketch ’old on ’er hand. And at last she disappeart all of a sudden, and then they found out who it ’ad bin, as ’ad bin daincin’ along wi’ ’em. And they all went off in a despert hurry, and there was niver no daincing there no more.“

Charlotte Burne was a writer and editor from Eccleshall, who became the first woman President of The Folklore Society and its first President outside London.

She was a prolific collector, writer and editor of myths, legends and customs folklore, despite suffering ill health for most of her life.

After chatting to locals, Charlotte classified the White Lady of Longnor as a fairy rather than a ghost, because of the association with water and her skill at dancing in a ring.

Charlotte’s account of her chats in Longnor says local people were reluctant to talk at first. And then they gave wilder and wilder accounts as the day went on:

“Nancy when questioned about ghosts replied at first, ‘Eh, bless ye, theer’s no sich things! and Hughes prefaced his histories with the assertion that ‘folks made a deal o’ talk, but he’d never sid nothin’. Patient listening, however, did wonders in both cases, as indeed it generally does in Folk-lore questing.
_{Shropshire Folklore, A Sheaf of Gleanings, 1883}