Bury's first memorial to its witch trial victims, naming everyone known from 1599 to 1694, goes on show at Moyse's Hall this month. The 1662 trial is restaged in February.
Bury St Edmunds is getting its first memorial to the people tried and executed in the town for witchcraft. The carved sculpture will carry the name of every known victim of the town’s witch trials, from 1599 to 1694. It is due to go on display at Moyse’s Hall Museum on the Cornhill at the end of October.
West Suffolk Council, which runs the museum, announced it on 13 October. The same project will restage one of the town’s real trials, from 1662, at The Guildhall in February.
What is being made
The memorial was designed by Kate Jackson, who is from Bury St Edmunds and was the lead singer of The Long Blondes. It is being carved by the Suffolk wood carver John Williams. The council’s photograph shows the carved timber panels still in the workshop.
Among the names it will carry are the 18 people hanged in a single day in 1645: 16 women and two men, one of them a vicar. The council says they were among some 140 people from all over Suffolk who were rounded up and brought to Bury by cart for trial.
The 1662 trial, and why it mattered beyond Suffolk
Rose Cullender and Amy Denny (spelt Duny in the records of the time) were tried at Bury in 1662. According to the council, their trial was the first accepted use of “spectral evidence”. That is testimony that the accused’s spirit had appeared to and harmed the victims.
An account of the trial, A Tryal of Witches, At the Assizes Held at Bury St Edmunds for the County of Suffolk, was first published in 1682. It was later consulted in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 1692 witch trials there, according to the museum’s event listing. Moyse’s Hall holds a rare copy. The council describes its copy as 310 years old and says the Bury Society helped it buy the book last year.
The trial on stage at The Guildhall
Magic Floor Productions will recreate the Cullender and Denny trial at The Guildhall in Bury in February. There will be four public performances and four more for local schools only.
The company is based in Thetford, about 12 miles north. It already stages trial re-enactments at Thetford’s old assizes court, where the audience sits as the jury, hears the original evidence and decides on a verdict. Dates and tickets for the Bury performances are not on its show diary yet.
Who is paying
- The Bury Society has put in more than £15,000, covering both the sculpture and the Guildhall performances.
- The Friends of Moyse’s Hall Museum have given £500.
- West Suffolk Council is paying for new display panels in the museum’s Crime and Punishment section, and for their long-term care.
Cllr Ian Shipp, the council’s cabinet member for leisure and culture, said: “What happened in Bury St Edmunds was a part of that dark and brutal history and shouldn’t be forgotten.”
Terry O’Donoghue, chair of the Bury Society, said the performances were “an opportunity to highlight how playing on insecurity, fear and jealousy, can lead to shameful, tragic consequences”.
Dr Steve Jones, secretary of the Friends of Moyse’s Hall, said attention usually falls on the witch finders rather than the people they accused. “This project aims to redress the balance by concentrating on the so-called witches: their lives and experiences,” he said.
What it means for you
- To see the memorial: Moyse’s Hall is open 10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday (last entry 4pm) and 10am to 4pm on Sundays (last entry 3pm), according to its visit page. A day ticket is £5.50 for adults and £4 for children and students, and under-5s are free. The £15.50 Heritage Ticket covers a year at Moyse’s Hall and West Stow.
- The museum’s Halloween exhibition, Things that go bump…, opens on Saturday 24 October, so the memorial should arrive in the middle of it. Our Halloween in Bury St Edmunds page has the rest of the half-term programme.
- A free online talk, Witch Trials: Bury to Salem, runs on Zoom at 7pm on Wednesday 18 November. Moyse’s Hall’s heritage officer and the Salem Witch Museum’s director of education will each show an exhibit live from their museums, with a Q&A. Details are on the museum’s listing.
- For the February performances, watch Magic Floor Productions’ show diary. We will add the dates here when they are published.
More things to do in town are in our Bury St Edmunds guide.
Have your say