Essex witchcraft indictments 1560-1603 Archives

I am delighted to tell you that my third local history book, Saffron Walden and Around Through Time, has now been published by Amberley Books and is available in “all good bookshops”.

Click the picture to be taken to Amazon’s page for my book.

Saffron Walden is a beautiful market town in the north west corner of Essex, and a town I knew very well from my own past, when I lived for many years in the nearby town of Great Dunmow. I have shopped many a time in the splendid shops and market within the town. But, more importantly to me, I had spent many a happy hour when my third child (now a strapping pre-teen) was just weeks old as I daily pounded the streets of Saffron Walden in the attempt to get him to sleep. It was whilst walking through the grounds of Saffron Walden’s church, St Mary the Virgin, that he first looked up at me from his push chair, laughing at his own joke that he’d managed to pull off his socks and toss them over the side of his buggy. I should have been warned then that he was to become a child full of laughter and practical jokes! Saffron Walden plays as special place in my heart for those early days of exhausted motherhood to my boy. It was also during those sleep-deprived days of endless walks that I fell in love with Saffron Walden’s ancient streets and buildings.

The beginnings of my book
In the late summer of 2014, I was sitting in Amberley Publishings offices in the beautiful Cotswold town of Stroud, having just delivered the manuscript for my first book, Bishop’s Stortford Through Time. I was musing with one of the company’s Commissioning Editors over other books I could write for Amberley. It popped into my head that Saffron Walden would make a good book, and a town which I would personally like to research and photograph. Fortunately Amberley agreed with me, and thus was born my third local history book Saffron Walden and Around Through Time, to become part of Amberley Publishing’s phenomenally successfully Through Time local history book series. Foolishly I agreed with Amberley that I could write it at the same time as my second local history book, Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time

So there I had it. Two books to be written and delivered at the same time…

What is the “Around” of my book?
As you will see from the title of my Saffron Walden book, it is an “and Around” book, so includes other villages nearby to Saffron Walden. My brief from Amberley was to write about Saffron Walden the town, but to also include chapters on other nearby villages. They didn’t want me to wander too far from the main town, but left it totally open to me which villages I could include as my “Around” (but also dropped heavy hints that they’d like to see the Chesterfords included!). So that was my brief…Saffron Walden and Around. All to be fitted within no more and no less than 96 pages.

I would like to say that I purposely decided which villages to include. But I have to say that writing my book was very organic. It seemed to take on a life of its own and it dictated to me what villages were to be included. In the end, my “Saffron Walden and Around” comprises

Saffron Walden
Audley End
Littlebury Parish
Wendens Ambo
The Chesterfords (Little and Great)

Tales of long ago
Because I use so many sources for each of my books, I write quite detailed captions to all my pages and try to tell a significant story for that street or view, or of the people who once lived in the houses and roads. So in my book on “Saffron Walden and Around”, you may read things about the town and villages which you may not have known about. For example, that Audley End (then known as Brook Walden) became infamous in 1579 as a place where the witch, Mother Staunton of Wimbish, practiced her witchcraft. That in 1601, William Newton a shepherd from Great Ambo was convicted of stealing nearly 100 sheep throughout Essex. That the infamous high wayman Dick Turpin held up the Walden and Stortford stagecoaches in Epping Forest in 1737…

There are so many stories to tell about this beautiful part of north west Essex.

Bridge Street, Saffron Walden. Near this spot, the chief constable of Saffron Walden, William Campling, was murdered in 1849.

Audley End House, with the spire of Saffron Walden’s parish church showing in the centre-left edge. In 1742, Daniel Defoe wrote that the House was in ruins and decaying.

Littlebury village. The village was on the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries stage coach routes between London and Newmarket or Norwich.

Crown House, Great Chesterford. In 1671, the diarist John Evelyn journeyed on a stage coach from London to meet King Charles II who was watching the races at Newmarket. The horses on Evelyn’s stagecoach were changed at this coaching inn.

The trials and tribulations of photographing a modern-day town
In common with all books in the Through Time series, each page of my book contains:-

First World War VAD Hospital, Saffron Walden

A “then” picture. An historic photograph of a building or street dating from between the early 1900s and the 1920s, for example a vintage postcard or old photograph.

A short caption and narrative about the view, detailing the view/building and setting it in its historic context.

A “now” photograph. This had to be an (almost) exact replica of the vintage view. So I had to locate and stand in the same location as the early 20th Century photographers, and capture a replica modern-day view. This in itself caused quite a few challenges; the main one being that Edwardian photographers did not have to contend with lorries and cars hurtling through the streets, but I did! As a consequence, many of my photographs had to be shot early in the morning; more often than not, on a Sunday. But even photographing early Sunday morning didn’t stop cars taking a prominent role in some of my images. Saffron Walden’s market place and high street were particularly troublesome in getting car-less photographs. I don’t think I managed a single photograph of the market place without at least one car being ever-present. Even at 6am on Easter Sunday morning there were still cars in the area!

Ironically, my own car appears on the “now” photograph on the front cover of my book. I didn’t mean it to be in shot… It took me countless early Sunday morning trips to the top of the high street to get that famous vista of Saffron Walden. Some days, the rain was too heavy for photographs; other days there were too many cars and people for my photographs to be “good shots”; to add to my problems, the light was bad on more days then I can count. For some reason known only to my early-morning-not-totally-awake self, one time (and one time only) I parked my car right in the line of my camera’s lens. And that shot (out of countless hundreds of others) was the best view of a relatively car-less (except mine) high street….

Some of the sources I used
If you have read my blog posts about writing my other books, you will know that writing such as book is a source of great personal satisfaction and delight for me. I wrote a month or so ago on my blog a post Suffolk Voices Past: Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time detailing my life-long hobby of postcard collecting and combining that with being social historian. I also wrote about the sources that I use for each of my books, such as history books, newspaper reports, county archaeology/conservation reports, Victorian census returns, The National Archives.

Below are some of the sources I used for Saffron Walden and Around Through Time

British Newspaper Archive – click the picture to explore this rich online archive from the British Library

1881 Census return from Audley End’s almhouses for pauper women. This particular census return took me on my journey of discovery of Rebecca Law, a remarkable woman who lived in all the towns and villages described within my book and died aged 103 in 1916. The story of Mrs Law’s long life is told in my book.
Click the image to be taken to FindMyPast, a 3rd party online ancestry resource helping you to research your own family history.

1579 pamphlet “A detection of damnable driftes practized by three witches arraigned at Chelmifforde in Essex“. One of my favourite sources – it told the tale of the Mother Staunton of Wimbish who bewitched a baby’s cradle in Brook Walden (now Audley End)

Saffron Walden and Around Through Time
I hope you enjoy reading my book. I would love to hear from you with your comments on any of my three local history books.

Market Hill in the early 1900s, Saffron Walden

Audley End Village in the early 1900s

Littlebury in the early 1900s, looking towards Queen’s Head Inn

A pretty spot in the 1920s – Wendens Ambo

The Vicarage in the 1920s, Great Chesterford

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About the author, Kate Cole
I have a Masters in local and regional history from Cambridge University, a BA in history from the Open University, and an Advanced Diploma in local history from Oxford University – all studied whilst a mature student. Amberley have commissioned me to write 5 books in their Through Time series, and a further book on the First World War. I also give talks about various aspects of East Anglian history (such as the English Reformation in Tudor Essex and the Essex Witches from the Tudor period) to local history societies and groups. I live in Maldon, Essex, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on this blog. Before starting my second career as a local historian, for over 30 years I was a business technologist and computer consultant working in the City of London.

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe to it. If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. I read every single comment and value the thoughts of my readers. Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Henry VIII and the looting of the monasteries
– Saffron Walden and Long Melford: Reading the Riot Act
– Witchcraft and Witches in Elizabethan Essex
– Witchcraft and witches in Essex: Part 1
– Witchcraft and witches in Essex: Part 2

You may also be interested in the following post, written about my Suffolk book
– Suffolk Voices Past: Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Throught Time

You may also be interested in the following posts, written during a book tour of my first local history book

– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: The postcards that got away
– Bishop’s Stortford and Local history
– Vintage postcards and local/family history
– Correlation between local and family history
– Teaching history to children
– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: How to get your local history book published
– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: The process of writing a local history book

I went on a Tudor witch-hunt.

A slightly strange thing to be doing on a cold winter’s afternoon on a Sunday in January, but those of you who know me, know that I’m slightly obsessed with the witches of Essex. Essex people (mainly women) who – between the 1560s and c1680s – were legally convicted of the crime of witchcraft.

Living close to the Essex town of Maldon, I’m a mere stone’s throw from some of the major “outbreaks” of England’s Tudor witchcraft. So, hence my decision to go on a witch-hunt.

Today, I visited the village Hatfield Peverel. In this village lived one of the first people to be executed for witchcraft in England. She was executed in 1566. If Essex was Tudor witch-county (which it was), then Hatfield Peverel was witch-village. The parish had more Elizabethan witches living in it than anywhere else in Essex (and therefore, by default, anywhere in England).

Hatfield Peverel today, despite being near the City of Chelmsford, is still relatively small. It is probably better known for its a train station with fast trains into London and its very easy access to the A12.

Not many people realise that it was once a witch village.

So, I went hunting for poor Agnes Waterhouse of Hatfield Peverel – executed in Chelmsford in 1566 for being a witch. Her grandmother, sister and daughter – all of Hatfield Peverel – were witches too.

The Examination and confession of certaine wytches at Chensforde

A woodcutting of Agnes Waterhouse. Executed in 1566 for murdering William Fynee by witchcraft

Today, there is very little trace of the Tudor or medieval village. A small amount of remnants are present in a few buildings and within the names of some of the houses. Such as Priory Lodge – located where there was once a medieval priory. Later, the ruins of the former priory were heavily amended during the 18th century.

Born in the early 1500s, Agnes Waterhouse and her family would have known the original Benedictine priory. It was closed in 1536, during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries – part of the consequences of the English Reformation. Long before her execution in 1566, as a young poor woman of the village, Agnes might have visited the priory, seeking charity and alms – such as bread and milk – for her family from its monks.

With most of the medieval/Tudor village long gone, the nearest I could get to poor Agnes was today’s parish church – St Andrew’s.

Agnes Waterhouse was born in the early 1500s – during the reign of Catholic Henry VII. Today’s parish church was originally part of the pre-Reformation Catholic priory’s church. But by the time of her trial in 1566, England had changed and was Protestant under Queen Elizabeth I’s Religious Settlement.

So much religious change happened during the 60 years of Agnes’ life.

A booklet printed at the time of her execution stated that Agnes said her prayers in Latin. A clear indication to Tudor folk that she was of the old religion – the banned Catholic faith. During Elizabeth I’s reign, England was a Protestant country and everyone was legally forced to say their prayers in English – the language of Protestantism.

Agnes’ prosecutors used the fact that she said her prayers in Latin – the language of the banned Catholic faith – as evidence that she was a witch.

Strange times…

Unfortunately, today Hatfield Peverel’s church was locked, so I couldn’t get inside it. The interior probably looks very different to how it was during Agnes’ childhood. Back then, at the start of the 1500s, the priory’s church must have been highly decorated with paintings of Catholic saints and symbolism. The interiors of English churches were white-washed on the orders, first of Henry VIII and then later by his son Edward VI.

Today, 450 years on, it was the nearest I could get to Agnes Waterhouse.

It was very peaceful in today’s churchyard – although I could hear the constant roar of the nearby A12 – East Anglia’s equivalent to a motorway. A murder of crows was calling in the churchyard’s trees (I love that expression – I’ve always wanted to say it!). But even in the coldness of the first Sunday in January, snowdrops were in full bloom.

Normally, when I’m witch-hunting, my next steps would be to look in the parish registers – baptisms, marriages and burials. It’s unlikely I’d find the burial of a convicted Essex witch– they were buried in a pit of executed criminals in Chelmsford – in unconsecrated ground. But I might find a witch’s victims buried in the local churchyard.

However a quick look at Essex Record Office’s website shows that Hatfield Peverel’s parish registers start in the early 1600s. I don’t know the complete history of St Andrew’s – particularly when it started to be the village’s parish church after the priory (and therefore it’s church) was closed. Agnes may have worshiped at another nearby church such as the one at Ulting.

So that’s one avenue of my research closed.

I didn’t quite find Agnes. But I certainly found the places where she played and roamed – and learnt her craft of being a witch – as a child in Henry VII’s and Henry VIII’s England.

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By the way, many people think that the major road in Chelmsford – Waterhouse Lane – was named after her. Even Chelmsford’s local newspaper has published an article saying that it was….

But think about it carefully… Witches were feared throughout England. Would a road (even what was, in Tudor times, a small country lane) really be named after a convicted notorious and much dreaded executed witch? Moreover, poor Agnes came from Hatfield Peverel – not Chelmsford.

But then, playing devil’s advocate, maybe the lane was named after her because of her place of execution. Chelmsford’s gallows was located approximately at the start of Waterhouse Lane. The hangman’s gallows were roughly where the road called Primrose Hill now is.

Then again, would the great and good of Tudor Chelmsford really really name a road after an executed and much feared witch from Hatfield Peverel who had a cat called Satan – who spoke to her and told her to say her prayers in Latin.

I think not.

Agnes Waterhouse’s cat – Satan

You can learn more about Agnes Waterhouse and other witches of Essex by enrolling in my online course on the Witches of Elizabethan and Stuart Essex. Click the “Learn More” button below to discover more details…

Tag Archive Essex witchcraft indictments 1560-1603

Saffron Walden and Around Through Time

The Witches of Elizabethan Essex