The Wem ghost

The story behind “one of the most famous ghost images of the 20th century” begins with a face in the flames, a pale young girl whose features seem to shift each time you look at her.

Once one of the world’s most famous ghost photographs, the 1995 shot was hailed as the return of a child from 1677: Jane Churm, the girl long blamed for the candle that supposedly sparked the town’s great fire.

But is this really the image of a long gone child, or something far stranger, and why does the story still echo so strongly in Germany today?

With special thanks to Toby Neal, Mark Elliott unravels the legend of the Wem ghost.