FASCINATION with ghosts is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, tales of spirits, both of the friendly and hostile varieties, have abounded since man could communicate.

In our supposedly more streetwise and sometimes cynical age, one would think that things that could not be proved beyond doubt scientifically would have long since ceased to have any place in a modern society.

Glancing through the pages of a couple of recently published books proves otherwise.

Worcestershire Ghosts and Hauntings, by Anne Bradford, and Haunted Land, by Paul Devereux, revisit incidents - which defy rational explanation - in the Vale and the Cotswolds down the centuries.

Anne Bradford, no stranger to recounting ghostly anecdotes, having previously written three such collections, devotes a section of her latest work to stories centred on the Vale.

One involves the eminent historical figure, Simon de Montfort.

It has been well catalogued that his body was hacked to pieces following his death during the Battle of Evesham.

According to Anne, after de Montfort's head and hands were sent to Lady Mortimer at Wigmore as "trophies", a messenger dispatched to Wigmore Castle's neighbouring abbey claimed to have seen the dismembered hands clasped in prayer above the altar as a priest elevated the host.

An alarmed Lady Mortimer returned the hands to Evesham.

Another spine-tingling tale features Evesham's "haunted" shoe shop, in the High Street, Evesham, by the old town hall.

The site was previously occupied by a prison in which Quakers persecuted during the late 17th century were incarcerated and atrocities carried out.

Among their trials and tribulations were being detained in a dark, dingy dungeon, on starvation rations, with some driven to their graves by their ordeals.

Within recent years, according to an eyewitness account in Worcestershire Ghosts and Hauntings, alarms at the shop on that site have gone off for no apparent reason.

More sinisterly, workers at the shop claimed to have heard footsteps overhead when they knew they were the only people on the premises.

Boxes were also said to have been thrown about and items left in particular places turned up mysteriously in others.

Offenham, too, has its share of ghost stories.

In Anne Bradford's book, she quotes one of the village's older residents whose husband told her he had seen a female figure moving "slowly and gracefully" from one wall of their bedroom to the other.

His instinct that the spirit was friendly was borne out by his wife, who said she saw the same vision six months after his sighting.

She described her as a "grey, see-through shape" and "quite young".

That was the last time either of them saw her.

According to Paul Devereux's Haunted Land, the Cotswolds has spawned several instances of monk-like ghosts.

Typical of the type of reported sighting in Winchcombe's Cowl Lane, near the abbey, was one from 1993.

A man walking past the abbey just before midnight caught a momentary glimpse of a figure walking in front of him, in "a long robe and flat type of hat".

The appropriately-named The Monk's Walk, a lane in Winchcombe, has been associated with monk-like ghosts.

One summer's night, according to one witness, a "sudden, cold breeze" sprang up and a "hooded figure" appeared from nowhere, walking along the lane towards him.

Whatever the explanation for these apparitions, the supernatural will always - for some - be the only conclusion.

l Worcestershire Ghosts and Hauntings by Anne Bradford, Hunt End Books, £6.50, ISBN 095194817-2.

Haunted Land - Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena by Paul Devereux, Piatkus Books, £17.99, ISBN 0 7499 2207 9.