Last week we had a coach trip booked which involved lunch, shopping, afternoon tea and even more exciting a tour of Pendle Witch country, an absolute must as it being the 400th anniversary of the
Lancashire Witch Trials.
We joined the coach which took us to
Boundary Mill in Colne, Lancashire
a huge store on two floors where they sell branded goods up to 70% cheaper and a haven for shoppers. We had an hour to look round before making our way across the huge car park to
Banny's Restaurant for our included lunch of fish, chips, bread and butter and a pot of tea, which was delicious.
After lunch the coach picked us and a guide up to take us on the Pendle Witch Tour.
The Lancashire Witch Trials, when 20 people, of whom sixteen were women, took took place at Lancaster assizes in the autumn of 1612. No fewer than ten of these unfortunate people
were found guilty at Lancaster, and hung altogether, witches were not burned in England. Eight others were acquitted; why, it is not easy to see,
for the evidence appears to have been equally strong,
or rather equally weak and absurd, against all.
The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: the official publication of the proceedings by the clerk to the court, Thomas Potts, in his
The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster,
and in the number of witches hanged together: ten at Lancaster and one
at York. It has been estimated that all of the English witch trials
between the early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than
500 executions, so this series of trials during the summer of 1612
accounts for more than 2 per cent of that total.
Six of the Pendle witches came from one of two families, each headed
by a female in her eighties at the time of the trials: Elizabeth
Southerns (aka Demdike)
,
her daughter Elizabeth Device, and her grandchildren James and Alizon
Device; Anne Whittle (aka Chattox), and her daughter Anne Redferne. The
others accused were Jane Bulcock and her son John Bulcock, Alice Nutter,
Katherine Hewitt, Alice Gray, and Jennet Preston. The outbreaks of
witchcraft in and around Pendle may demonstrate the extent to which
people could make a living by posing as witches. Many of the allegations
resulted from accusations that members of the Demdike and Chattox
families made against each other, perhaps because they were in
competition, both trying to make a living from healing, begging, and
extortion.
Pendle Hill dominates the skyline, a foreboding place even on a bright day,
Village of Pendleton
but the surrounding countryside is quite beautiful.
The last person to be tried under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was
Medium
Helen Duncan in 1944. She had come to the attention of the
authorities after the spirit of a sailor reportedly appeared at one of
her seances announcing that he had just gone down on a vessel called the
Barham. HMS 'Barham' was not officially declared lost until several
months later, its sinking having been kept secret to mislead the enemy
and protect morale. One of her seances was interrupted by a police raid
during which she and three memebers of her audience were arrested.
Duncan was remanded in custody by Portsmouth magistrates. She was
originally charged under section 4 of the Vagrancy Act (1824), under
which most charges related to fortune-telling, astrology and spiritualism were prosecuted by magistrates in the 20th centruy. This
was considered a relatively petty charge and usually resulted in a fine
if proved. She was eventually tried by jury at the Old Bailey for
contravening section 4 of the Witchcraft Act of 1835, which carried the
heavier potential penalty of a prison sentence.
Duncan was found guilty as charged under the Witchcraft Act and
sentenced to nine months in Holloway Prison, London. She was the last
person in Britain to be jailed under the act, which was repealed in 1951
and replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act, following a campaign by
spiritualist and member of Parliament Thomas Brooks.
It has often been suggested that the reason for Duncan's imprisonmenet was the authorities' fear that details of the imminent D-Day landings might be revealed, and given the revelation about the Barham it is clear to see why the Duncan might be considered a potential risk. Nonetheless, then Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to the home secretary branding the charge 'obselete tomfoolery'.
Helen Duncan was released from prison on 22nd September 1944 and seems to have avoided further trouble until November 1956 when the police raided a private seance in Nottingham where they
grabbed the presiding medium, Duncan, strip searched her and took endless flashlight photographs.
They shouted at her that they were looking for beards, masks and shrouds. But they
found nothing. In their ignorance the police had committed the worst
possible sin of physical phenomena; that a medium in trance must NEVER, ever be touched.
As the Spirit World's teachers have patiently explained so many times when this happens
the ectoplasm returns to the medium's body far too quickly and can cause immense
- sometimes even fatal - damage.
And so it was in this case. A doctor was summoned and discovered two second degree
burns across Helen's stomach. She was so ill that she was immediately taken back
to her Scottish home and later rushed to hospital. Helen Duncan died five weeks later on 6th December 1956. There is an ongoing campaign to secure a pardon for Helen.
During the tour we also stopped at
Sawley Abbey long enough to take a few photos.
The Cistercian Monastery was founded in January 1147 by monks from Newminster Abbey in Northumberland. Although never particularly
wealthy, the Abbey survived for almost 400 years until its Dissolution in 1536 by Henry VIII.
We also passed an interesting pub.
At the end of a fascinating tour we returned to Boundary Mill where we had two hours to shop to our heart's content. MWM went to the cafe for a cup of coffee and read his Kindle until I joined him after 90 minutes, during which I bought two pairs of Clarks shoes at half price. We had a lovely cup of coffee and a fresh cream scone, which was included in the price of the excursion, before boarding the coach for the journey home.
We really enjoyed the day - me for the shopping and both of us for the tour, the lunch and the afternoon tea treat.
I
