An academic has claimed to uncover the truth about England's most hanted village. For more than 70 years, Pluckley in Kent has been known as England's scariest village, with more than a dozen ghosts hanting the area.

Dr Simon Moreton, associate professor of creative economies at Bristol’s University of the West of England (UWE), has said that four of the most popular ghost stories are based on real people. Sarah Sharp, who burnt to death in August 1911, is known as the Watercress Lady, while Mary Ann Bennett, who killed herself in 1862, is called the Lady of Rose Court. Richard Bridgland died in an accident at the Pluckley Brick and Tile Works quarry in January 1899, earning him the moniker the Screaming Man of the Clay Pit, while the Hanging Schoolmaster is Henry Edgar Martin, who killed himself in August 1919.

Dr Moreton said: “The way these stories get told and retold can tell us a great deal about how we use the past to understand ourselves and the places we live.

“Local rumours take on a life of their own. Personal tragedies become salacious gossip, and sometimes social prejudices obscure the real lived experiences of the people the stories relate to.

“Finally, it reminds us there are real people and real places behind these stories, both of which deserve our respect.”

Dr Moreton pieced together the origins of the village's folklore through extensive archival research, and by scouring newspapers; parish records; and birth, marriage, and death records.

“I’ve been fascinated by the ghost stories of Pluckley since I was a child,” he said.

“My late father’s ancestors came from the village, so the research has been a personal as well as a professional journey.

“Over the course of the research, I even discovered that one of the alleged ghosts is a distant cousin: Sarah Sharp, the Watercress Lady.”

Pluckley is located on the northern edge of the Weald between Maidstone and Ashford.

It was previously known as an Anglo-Saxon settlement and boasts several historic buildings, including a 14th century church.

In the 1990s it grew prominence as the setting for the hit TV adaptation of HE Bates’s novel The Darling Buds of May and its sequels, starring David Jason and Pam Ferris.

The villagewas given the most haunted title in 1950 and bolstered after a further mention in the 1989 Guinness Book of Records.

“Storytelling is a fundamental human behaviour and whether or not you believe in ghosts, Pluckley’s reputation demonstrates how fascinated we are with tales with a spooky edge to them,” Dr Moreton said.

“What’s exciting about this research is that it’s been possible to demonstrate how one person with a passion for these kinds of stories was able to shape – for better or worse – the identity of a whole village through his storytelling.”

Dr Moreton’s research has uncovered that 10 of Pluckley’s ghost stories were first recorded by local man Frederick Sanders in his self-published books on ghost hunting, letters to the local press, newspaper articles and during ghost hunts.

Frederick Sanders and the Origins of the Most Haunted Village in England is published in the journal Folklore.