Pluckley’s ghostly reputation helped residents fend off plans that could have seen the M20 plough straight through its ancient woods, according to new research.

Tenterden-based writer Ed Adams has delved into the murky origins of the stories that have seen the village dubbed England’s most haunted - and uncovered how they were used to protect the community from development in the 1970s.

His new book, Pluckley: The Making and Faking of a Ghost Story, reveals how a group of villagers capitalised on the area’s supernatural fame to draw attention to plans that threatened to change it forever.

He told KentOnline that one suggested route for the newly built M20 motorway would have cut through the parish and even clipped the edge of Dering Woods – the forest now notorious as the Screaming Woods.

“The ghost stories weren’t just about spooks,” he says. “They became a way for people to say, ‘this place matters, it’s unique, and we don’t want to lose it.’”

Mr Adams’ research shows that the tales which put Pluckley on the paranormal map didn’t develop naturally, but were shaped and promoted for what he calls “very earthly reasons”.

In the early 1970s, a group of newcomers formed the Pluckley Association, a residents’ pressure group that included several media professionals.

Mr Adams says they seized on the ghost stories to boost the village’s profile and resist large-scale development.

“Publicity was power,” he explains. “The more attention they brought to Pluckley’s heritage - even if it came with a few ghouls attached - the harder it became for planners to bulldoze through it.”

Mr Adams’ investigation also strips back decades of folklore to identify the real-life events and people behind the village’s most famous hauntings.

Among them are:

*The White Lady of Surrenden Dering - believed to be inspired by nurse Eliza McDermott, who burned to death while serving the Dering family at Christmas 1835.

*The Highwayman - probably based on Stephen Rich, a smuggler killed in a fight with excise men in 1792 near the spot of the supposed haunting.

*The Monk - thought to be Reginald Tuke, a Catholic priest who founded a monastic order in London and later lived with his nieces at Greystones (then Rectory Cottage).

*The Watercress Woman - identified as Sarah Sharp, who died in 1911 nearly two miles away in neighbouring Smarden, not at Pinnock Bridge, where the legend places her ghost.

“The question of whether Pluckley’s many ghosts are real or not will always be open to debate,” says Mr Adams.

“But it’s now clear that most of the stories were indeed based on true events, though with varying degrees of accuracy.”

The author also traces how the myths evolved through the 20th century - from early newspaper contributions by former resident Frederick Sanders, to embellishments by radio presenter Desmond Carrington, who lived in the village in the 1960s.

A dark chapter came in 1980 when 79-year-old resident Gwendoline Marshall was murdered. The shocking crime fuelled sensational rumours of occult involvement, though those links were never proven.

A local teenager was convicted but some villagers have long questioned whether the right person was brought to justice.

In 1991, the hit TV series The Darling Buds of May brought a surge of visitors to Pluckley, and Halloween that year saw police overwhelmed by ghost-hunters causing chaos.

The internet era then shifted attention to Dering Wood, rebranded online as the Screaming Woods after a fabricated story about a mass killing circulated in 2015.

Mr Adams adds: “The Pluckley legend is too strong to ever die out completely. What I’ve tried to do is give people the full picture - the history, the real people, and the reasons why these stories were told in the first place.”

*Pluckley: The Making and Faking of a Ghost Story is out now, published by Canterley Publishing (£12.99). Copies are also available at the Heritage Centre at St Nicholas’ Church, Pluckley.