The intriguing story of the murder down the auld mill has captivated generations of children in a North-East community.

It is a tale of a widower with political aspirations who makes his orphaned niece pregnant.

To silence her and prevent shame, he gets someone to murder her and dispose of her body. But her restless spirit returns to haunt a millkeeper into helping uncover the crime. The account is accepted by a jury, leading to the culprits being hanged.

It is a good yarn, and one rooted in fact.

Author John Parkin, of Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, has spent years digging up the facts of young Annie Walker's murder and has used them to flesh out a gripping novel to be published in the New Year.

Mr Parkin said: "I was first told the story as a little boy by my cousin and was studying village history when I stumbled on more information about it.

"The trial, which took place in 1631, has been well documented, most notably in Surtees History of Durham."

One contemporary account is contained in letter from Dr Henry More to fellow writer and philosopher Joseph Glanvill. He quotes from the book "Displaying and Detection of Supposed Witchcraft", detailing how John Walker, a yeoman of good estate and a widower, kept Annie Walker in his house. When she fell pregnant he roped collier Mark Sharp into the plot. Sharp tricked Annie into following him to the banks of the River Wear, near Great Lumley, where he bludgeoned her to death as winter set in, in 1630.

Miller James Graham later told the court he was grinding corn when he saw her "apparition with her hair about her head, hanging down and all bloody, with five large wounds in her head".

The spirit told him how she had been murdered and had her body thrown into a coal pit and revealed where the killer's bloody shoes and stockings could be found buried in the riverbank.

She told him he must be the man to reveal it, or else she would continue to haunt him. She became fiercer with each visit until he eventually went to the magistrates.

The body, murder weapon and clothing were found, but Walker and Sharp never confessed.

Annie's ghost did not give up, though. At the trial in the Durham Assizes, juryman George Fairhair, of Lanchester, said under oath that he had seen the likeness of a child standing on Walker's shoulders.

Mr Parkin said: "One cannot fail to agree with Dr More that the overall body of evidence provided within three written statements confirms that two inhabitants were indeed exposed as murderers.

"Furthermore, having been tried by jury and sentenced by a judge whose existence at that time is beyond question, both men were launched into the hereafter as a result of the apparent persistence of their victim's restless spirit."

Mr Parkin added: "A more plausible explanation would be that it was Graham himself who, having accidentally fathered the unborn child, committed the murder and then covered his guilt by accusing Walker and Sharp.

"He did so knowing full well that contemporary beliefs would ensure his sensational tale would be accepted as genuine."

But Mr Parkin's novel gives him the reign to remain faithful to local legend.

It was written partly in Siberia and researched in the library at Durham's Palace Green - the site of the original trial. The book features known landmarks including the mill, part of which still exists, and the nearby riverbank bearing the name Red Rocks.

Mr Parkin said: "The story has survived in Great Lumley for almost four centuries and is certainly one of the more intriguing aspects of the rich history of our village.

"Hopefully, this work Spiritual Testimony, will support its continued existence. It leaves it up to the reader to make a judgement as to the facts."