The Tragic Tale of Private Patrick McCafferty Dandy the Dog Burnley’s Boggarts The Crier of Claife The Martyr’s Skull The Witch’s Seat The Fairy Hole Caves A Grim Discovery at Quernmore The Peculiar Tale of Peg O’ Nell The Story of William Southworth, Landlord of the Lower Buck Ralph Pudsey and the Silver Bit TheContinue reading “The Unnatural Histories Collection”
Tag Archives: #UnnaturalHistories
Unnatural Histories, The Martyr’s Skull
Deep in the ancient Forest of Bowland, at the heart of a medieval hunting estate, sits the old stone hall of Browsholme. At one end of the hall, in a dark library full of odds-and-ends from over the centuries, suits of armour, swords, muskets and even a piece of a zeppelin, stands a locked cabinet.Continue reading “Unnatural Histories, The Martyr’s Skull”
Ralph Pudsey and the Silver Bit, a Ribble Valley Fairytale
In Deepest, Darkest Yorkshire, under the shadow of Pendle, in the church of St Peter and St Paul, in the ancient village of Bolton-by-Bowland, can be found one of the most ornate tombs in all of Christendom. This is the final resting place of the medieval landowner and noble Sir Ralph Pudsey, his three wivesContinue reading “Ralph Pudsey and the Silver Bit, a Ribble Valley Fairytale”
The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy
The Lancashire Witches’, by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy One voice for ten dragged this way onceby superstition, ignorance.Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,daughter of such, of evil faith;in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone. Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.On the wind’sContinue reading “The Lancashire Witches’ by Carol Ann Duffy”
Unnatural Histories, The Witches Way to Lancaster
It is over Four Hundred years since the infamous Pendle Witch Trials at Lancaster where the accused twelve were taken to be sentenced and hanged in 1612. In that fateful year, between the 17th and 19th of August, Eleven people went to trial on suspicion of practising witchcraft, it should have been Twelve but theContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, The Witches Way to Lancaster”
Unnatural Histories, The Fairy hole Caves at Whitewell
Lancashire isn’t exactly well known for its caves, with neighbouring Yorkshire enjoying all the potholing fun, but the edge of the Limestone reefs that underlie the North Yorkshire moors, which are famous for their extensive cave systems, do show their face again one last time in Lancashire before disappearing beneath the shale and gritstone ofContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, The Fairy hole Caves at Whitewell”
Unnatural Histories, A Grim Discovery at Quernmore
Quernmore Dark Age Burial In 1973 a dog walker, James Marshall, was walking his dog near Jubilee Tower on the fells above the village of Quernmore. Recently builders had been constructing a car park for the tower, a popular local landmark and viewpoint, and had been removing peat with a digger. Peculiar wooden artifacts AsContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, A Grim Discovery at Quernmore”
Unnatural Histories, Pudsey’s Leap and the Fairy’s Silver Bit
In St Peter and St Paul’s church in the village of Bolton-by-Bowland in deepest, darkest Lancashire you can find the ornate tomb of the 15th century landowner, Sir Ralph Pudsey, his three wives and twenty-five children. There are many stories about Ralph Pudsey but one stands out more than the others, this story is theContinue reading “Unnatural Histories, Pudsey’s Leap and the Fairy’s Silver Bit”
