Out and About in Suffolk and a Story of Murder Most Foul.

This is of course , a horticulture blog . I am not commonly a fairweather nurseryman but this wintertime has defeated me with its endless wet , come after this last week with frost . rather of showing you yet more hellebores and snowdrops , I ’d like to take you for a walk . England and Wales have 130,000 mile of public pathway , taking you across almost any field of battle you take a phantasy to ramble over . But after never-ending rainfall you lean to arrive home with most of the field on your boots . But you do n’t need to tramp across bleak fields . This part of Suffolk is rich in some of the pretty villages in the country . The riches that the woollen trade brought to 15th C Suffolk has forget a bequest of brilliant churches and beautiful half timbered house , many of them thatched .

Not far from where we inhabit is the delicious village of Polstead . In winter this is made even more delightful by the snowdrops grow in every garden and spill onto the verges , many of them have petals tipped with fleeceable . In spring , there are trees frothing with cherry efflorescence ; these are the famous ‘ Polstead Black ’ cherry , which is famous for its racy pleasantness . I did have one of these adorable cherry red trees , but it yield to one of the Pianist ’s rarefied moments of strimming enthusiasm . But then get ’s not apportion rap , perhaps it was a rabbit . ( I have to be deliberate what I say , now and again the Pianist does in reality read my web log . I do n’t want to discourage his uncommon sortie into the garden )

The name Polstead intend a ‘ place of pool ’ . It has a pretty 12th century church building with adorable scene over rolled countryside . We are distinguish that the phantom off a old vicar of the church sometimes add up dashing down the hill in a trap draw by a brainless horse . A tad melodramatic , do n’t you cerebrate ? It ’s funny how often phantom horses are brainless . Maybe this same parson drive the Rev Hayden Foster from the rectory in 1980 with his attending - seeking hauntings .

Polstead pond

Polstead pond

But this post is not about ghosts it ’s about a murder . The Victorians invented the murder mystery and they could n’t get enough of real life murder . They contrive slaying touristry and would come from naut mi around to claver the sight of a gruesome crime . Thomas Quincey sound out : ‘ Pleasant it is no doubtfulness , to drink tea with your dish , but most disagreeable to discover her belch in the Camellia sinensis urn’ . This may be on-key , but the Victorians could n’t get enough of chronicle about other people ’s sweethearts coming to a gruesome end . possibly one of the first murders to catch the imagination of the public was the notorious Red Barn Murder in 1827 , ten age before Victoria came to the throne .

Maria Marten was the daughter of the mole catcher and ‘ no better than she should be ‘ as my grandmother would say through pursed lips .

Polstead pond

Maria Marten ’s cottage

She had had two illegitimate baby from two dissimilar father , ( one of of them William ’s blood brother ) before she bug out a human relationship with William Corder who was the boy of a farmer and rather further up the social scale than Maria .

William Corder ’s house

Polstead pond

Polstead pond

William Corder

Maria persuade William to wed her after she had yet another child . He agreed to go out with her and assure her to mask herself as a humankind and meet him in a nearby barn . She did so and was never discover again . William told Maria ’s parent that she was waiting in Ipswich for a special licence to get marry . He even said that he had received a letter from her from the Isle of Wight . Eventually , he left Polstead , taking the Florida key to the crimson barn with him . He advertise in the newspapers for a married woman . He found one and settled down in Brentford in Essex . Eleven months after her disappearance , Maria ’s young stepmother said that she had had a dream and that Maria ’s founder should go and fag up the level of the red barn because she was sure that Maria was buried there . It has been intimate she have intercourse where the body was because she had a relationship with Corder herself and was piqued when he got married . She may even have been implicate in the murder , but after all this time we will never lie with the accuracy . Maria ’s decomposing body was found and Corder was turn back . The trial at Bury St. Edmunds caught the imagination of the public and was reported in the newspaper in all its gory detail . Maria appeared to have been shoot , strangled and stab . There was Red Barn mania . A year after the murder sheath the b had been destroy by souvenir huntsman wanting a small-arm . subsequently Maria ’s grave Lucy Stone would also be chiseled away . play and lay were written and Staffordshire potteries made model of the barn .

The execution test was a champion and the strong belief inevitable . Maria ’s moulder head was used in grounds . Corder was sentence to be hanged and his body to public dissection . The hangman was allowed to keep the rope which he sold , at a guinea an column inch , to relic huntsman . It is estimated that a crowd of 10,000 people came to see the wall hanging and to register past the organic structure which had been cut candid so that they could see the organs . This skanky exercise came to an end in 1832 when the Anatomy Act came in . Up until then , anybody who was attend for slaying was deny burial , so when the surgeons had finish dissecting Corder his skeleton was pass to the West Suffolk Hospital where it was used to teach anatomy . It stay there until the 1940s and was even taken to dances sometimes . The surgeon who dissect him was called Creed and he got to keep the scalp which he tanned . He even had a rule book made out of the bronzed tegument . These gruesome relic are to be found in Moyses Museum in Bury St Edmunds . Close your eyes now if you ’d rather not see .

Maria Marten’s cottage

Maria Marten’s cottage

Corder ’s scalp and a Christian Bible made out of his skin . Moyse ’s Hall Museum . Bury St. Edmunds .

The Victorians were grip by their new found science ‘ phrenology ’ which was n’t scientific at all . They really believed that a person ’s character could be read in the hump of his capitulum . Of course they were keen to learn Corder ’s skull and a cast was made of it by Childs . A extended dissertation was the final result and of course the protuberance in the read/write head proved what a varlet Corder was .

Cast of Corder ’s head made by Childs . Moyse ’s Hall Museum .

William Corder’s cottage

William Corder’s house

It is sobering to think how roue thirsty and ghoulish our ancestor were in the not so remote past . Of of course we all like a well execution whodunit , there is even a fresh literary genre called‘cosy slaying enigma ‘ . But there is nothing snug about the Red Barn Murder . I do n’t know what Agatha Christie would have made of it all . I hope when I come to save my next post it will have discontinue rain and I will be bringing you news from the garden . It ’s potential that I may show you some more beautiful Suffolk villages in future posts . But no more grisly execution . I promise .

53 Responses toOut and About in Suffolk and a Story of Murder Most Foul.

They were a gruesome lot those Victorians ! I do hope the weather stops presently – not least because I am a sensitive soul and very potential to have a nightmare about the red b tonight . flower are less frightening by far !

Polstead look like a particularly beautiful village . When it comes to instruction execution in the past , the worst I happen is that most of those who were hang in the 19th century were hanged for larceny , sometimes only food . As you say , our not so distant ancestors seemed to have been blood thirsty and morbid .

Thank you for that pass – that ’s what I require to do now that the temporary are warming up just a bit here . Yikes – what a story ! Weird to opine these thing happened not so long ago really . Grisly and gruesome , indeed .

William Corder

William Corder

I think the fascination with murder persists . We have a TV epithelial duct here which I depone runs show like “ Forensic Files ” and the similar 24 hours a day . ( I ’m unsure of the appeal as it always seems that the murderer is the deceased ’s hubby or boyfriend or , if the victim is male , his wife or girlfriend . ) And I have a friend ( a perfectly nice , professional person ) who is seemingly enamored with serial killers . However , until now , I do n’t think I ’ve ever listen of public dissection .

What an interesting story . It is unfeignedly interesting to think of how grisly and brutal our ancestors were . On the other script , in the modern populace , we ’re , in many style far remove from demise . No showing of the dead body at household , etc . Loved the homes and look forrad to determine more of your beautiful part of the world through your posts !

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Out and About in Suffolk and a Story of Murder Most Foul.