On the 20th of August 1612 eight women and two men were hanged in Lancaster Castle. They were found guilty of no ordinary crime. They were accused of Witchcraft and in the end they were convicted as the infamous “Pendle Witches”…
Precisely 400 years later I am visiting the dungeon inside the Lancaster Castle (still a functioning prison only a year ago) where these ten “witches” spent the last five months of their lives in darkness, damp and most likely in desperation waiting for their trial.
Colin Penny, Lancaster Castle Manager, tells me that while at the time it would normally take 30 minutes for a judge to decide on a court case, the Pendle Witches’ trial lasted for two days. A young girl, aged nine, was the crucial witness whose evidence led to the conviction and public execution of the Pendle Witches and set a precedent in the British legal history.
The dungeon is not normally open to the public so do enjoy the slide show
The eerie anniversary of the Witches execution attracts the crowds (and me for that matter) down the Witches Trail, in Pendle, Lancashire where it all begun
Witchcraft is still a big thing here, for tourism that is, or so I hope as I enter the woodlands. I am here to visit a new Pendle Sculture Trail with Philippe Handford, lead artist. “There are some intriguing shapes in Aitken Wood and we’ve all been touched by a sense of Pendle’s History. There is a kind of presence which still liners in the woodland and which has been felt by all the artist”, says Handford.
Curiosity Space 