Witchcraft and Cunning of St Osyth

The Witchcraft and Cunning of St Osyth, Essex

Alex Langstone

Sixteenth century witchcraft features to the fore in the history of the coastal parish of St Osyth in north-east Essex. The history of Mother Kemp and her contemporaries is well documented and for the most part is typical of the way sixteenth century witchcraft cases were recorded, with hearings and evidence from all and sundry who had any grievance. However, Ursula Kemp did have a reputation as a cunning woman, nursemaid and midwife in St Osyth before the rumours of more malevolent practice were presented. She was often called on for her services, which included removing spells, helping young mothers, midwifery, and healing. All these practises were very risky in an age of high infant mortality, superstition, and paranoia. One healing charm she is known to have used is one that she was taught by a local cunning woman called Mother Cocke.(1)  This particular arthritis charm used a piece of hog dung and a bunch of chervil. These were mixed and then held in the left hand whilst the mix was pricked three times with a knife held in the right hand. The mix was then thrown on the fire.   The knife was then used to make three cuts under the kitchen table and was left there until the arthritis went away. Meanwhile, a jug was then filled with ale, three sage leaves and some yellow flowers of the St John’s Wort. A sip was drunk early morning and before bed until it was all consumed. (2)   The arthritis would then be cured permanently. Ursula used this remedy to cure her first recorded clients, Mr and Mrs Page, who had consulted Kemp to cure their lameness. Ironically, the lameness was believed to have been caused by another witch in the village, and this shows that Ursula Kemp was consulted to provide counter-witchcraft charms and cures as a service to the village. Many other villagers were involved in this business of cunning versus sorcery and were subsequently accused of witchcraft. These were Alice Hunt, Alice Newman, Elizabeth Bennet, Margery Sammon, Joan Pechey, Agnes Glascock, Cicely Celles, Anne Swallow, Anis Herd, Joan Turner, Alice Manfield, Margaret Grevell, Mother Ewstace and Mother Barnes. Kemp reported some of them herself during her trial, as did others. 

Ursula’s downfall seemed to start when she was consulted to help Grace Thurlow’s son Davy recover from an illness. Mother Kemp was successful in helping Davy, and Grace later consulted Ursula to help cure her arthritis, and Kemp used the old charm that she had learned from Cunning Cocke, the wise woman she had once known, and from whom she had learned much of her cunning craft. However, Grace Thurlow fell out with Ursula Kemp when she was charged a shilling for her services and refused to pay. Grace then started to make witchcraft accusations against Ursula and was apparently advised to do this by another (unnamed) village wise woman. Kemp also worked with cunning woman Alice Newman, and both were charged with bewitching Edna Starron. The trial at Chelmsford on 29th March 1582 saw fourteen women from St Osyth on a charge of witchcraft in front of local magistrate, Bryan D‘Arcy. During the trial most of the women blamed each other or made accusations amid a complicated web of deceit, where the witches’ familiars seemed to have been kept remarkably busy with lots of ungodly misdemeanours going on. The familiars included satanic cats, dogs with horns, evil toads, and lambs of Lucifer. The grand finale seems to have been at Michaelmas 1581, where several spirits (familiars) were conjured and raised by various St Osyth witches and were instructed to take a trip out one dark night to burn down the barn belonging to local farmer Richard Ross. 

By the end of the trial, only two of the women were convicted to hang: Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennet. (3) Of the others, it is not known what happened to them, but there are some interesting descriptions of some of the imps and familiars that were used in their magic. Anis Heard kept rats that had horns and were red and white and looked more like miniature cows, (4)  and she also had some blackbirds which assisted her and were housed in a box lined with black and white wool. Margery Sammon had two spirit toads, their names were Tom and Robyn, which she inherited from her mother, who was known as Mother Barnes. Another of the St Osyth witches was Alice Hunt, who was Margery Sammon’s sister. Ursula Kemp had also seen one of Elizabeth Bennet’s imps, a ferret, lifting a cloth which was lying over a pot. (5)  Ursula eventually confessed to have kept four imps of her own. Tyffin and Jack were used to kill, and Pigine and Tyttie to cause lameness and other minor afflictions. Bryan D‘Arcy continued to deceive  Ursula by saying that he would treat her with clemency if she continued to help him with his inquiries. She was locked up for the night in the village cage and the following morning, D‘Arcy continued to question her. It is at this point that Ursula Kemp begins to reveal the identity of the rest of the village cunning women and witches, still believing that she would be set free. From this point D’Arcy was in full-on mania mode, questioning children as young as eight years old, to get the results he both required and desired. (6)

It is impossible to think about all these women of St Osyth without wondering what was really going on here. There is a theory about a Catholic plot at the time of D’Arcy’s investigations. Queen Elizabeth’s government were getting paranoid, and D’Arcy had already investigated a previous case of sorcery, where in 1580, several conjurors had been rounded up in Essex (7) and sent to London to be examined by the Privy Council. Catholic plotters John Lee, Thomas Glascocke and Nicholas Johnson were thought to have been responsible.  Around the same time D’Arcy had investigated a local thirteen-year-old boy named Thomas Lever, who was imprisoned in the county jail in Colchester, accused of being a sorcerer’s apprentice to William Randall. Randall was a magician from Ipswich who worked in Essex as an occultist treasure-hunter, who used magic to find buried artefacts. Randall had been one of the conspirators sent to London and was thought to be one of the leading members of a group of magicians who met in Halstead. This group was accused of raising spirits to guide them to lost treasures and other rich pickings. Of course, Lever’s mother was terrified for her teenage son, and contacted the Privy Council, whereupon Thomas Lever was released without charge. (8)

In 1921 two skeletons were unearthed in St Osyth by local resident Mr Brooker, who was digging in his garden in Mill Street. The burials were orientated north-south, rather than the more usual east-west. Rumours quickly spread that it was the remains of Ursula and Elizabeth. Local newspapers reported on the finds and told of how the bones were impaled into the ground with iron spikes and chains. The skeletal remains became a paid for side show in an early attempt at encouraging dark tourism to the area, and a stream of visitors came to view Ursula Kemp’s remains for sixpence a view. One skeleton was well preserved, the other was in an extremely poor condition. Eleven years later the cottage adjoining the grave site mysteriously burned down, and the graves were filled in. Then, in 1963, the famous Museum of Witchcraft based in Boscastle, Cornwall heard that the bones of Ursula Kemp had been exhumed and contacted Mr Brooker’s son-in-law. The owner of the Witchcraft Museum, Cecil Williamson, purchased the skeleton, and recalled that when he went to lift the bones, he noticed the iron spikes or nails that had been driven through her body. Below are the original words written by Cecil Williamson that accompanied her display in the museum. 

Having been executed as a condemned witch, Ursula Kemp was denied burial by the church in consecrated ground. So, her body was returned from the place of execution to her native village of St. Osyth and buried in common land. While digging for gravel, in 1921, her body was unearthed, identified, and put on public show at the spot where she was found. In 1932, the cottage tea-room adjoining the grave site was burnt down and the grave filled in. In 1963 the museum was asked to take over and remove her remains in order to make way for a sewage scheme. This was done, after first obtaining a ruling from the home office of undertaking. It is of interest to note that when I came to lift the bones, I discovered that iron spikes had been driven through her body in order to hold her down in the grave and so prevent her from haunting the village. Such was the fear of witches in those days. Some of the iron spikes are to be seen beside the coffin. (9) 

But Ursula Kemp’s story did not end there. In 1999, Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz purchased the skeleton from Cecil Williamson to add to his already huge collection of artefacts and library of occult books. Lenkiewicz died in 2002 aged 60, and his library, many of his paintings and the remains of Ursula Kemp remained in his St Saviour’s studio in Plymouth, whilst the lengthy process of probate was conducted. Eventually, with the permission of The Lenkiewicz Foundation, an archaeological investigation and appraisal of the skeleton was undertaken by Jaqueline McKinley of Wessex Archaeology. Through this investigation much information has come to light. 

These discoveries were interesting, though they did not concur with the historic narrative.  It is highly likely that the iron spikes were driven into the bones in 1921, when the skeleton was discovered by Mr Brooker. More importantly it is now known that the skeleton was that of a male in his early twenties. Interestingly, his remains have been dated to the same period of the sixteenth century as Ursula Kemp. Did he know Ursula? More importantly why was he buried in un-consecrated ground on a north-south axis. There are rumours of other skulls and bones that were discovered in the 1963 exhumation, (10) including a skull with the head of a spear embedded in it.  (11)

The bones that were once thought to be the remains of Ursula Kemp have now been buried in a quiet corner of St Osyth village cemetery by the junction of Clay Lane, just a short walk from the site in Mill Street, where the remains were first discovered by Mr Brooker in 1921.

A newspaper report from the Clacton and Frinton Gazette, dated 22nd January 2016, finally puts more information in place surrounding the myth and lore of the Ursula Kemp story. Paul Scolding, the grandson of Mr Brooker tells his tale, and shares his memories of the events surrounding the remains and confesses that his grandfather did indeed add the iron nails to the burial, to give more credence to it being the grave of a witch. Paul goes on to say that he was the person who eventually uncovered her before she was sold to the Museum of Witchcraft. He describes the burial place, as he uncovered it in 1963.

There was a very long spine, pure white teeth and nails through the knees and elbows, which turned out to be 18th century. There was a skull beneath Ursula’s feet and to the right there was another skeleton. (12) 

In the centre of the village, in Colchester Road lies The Cage, an historic old village lock up, built of brick with a solid wooden door. It is often cited as an old prison, but in reality, it was a building used to hold suspects whilst they were being questioned or until they could be transported to the courts or be brought in front of a magistrate. The cage would also have been used for holding drunks until they had sobered up. Every village would have had something similar, and further down the coast at Tollesbury, a wooden Cage can still be seen. St Osyth’s cage was in use as a holding cell from the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. Ursula Kemp and her associates would have been held there whilst they were being questioned by Bryan D’Arcy and before they were sent for trial at Chelmsford.

The cage (pictured above) was closed in 1908, and it became a local curiosity until the 1970s, when it was converted into an extension for the neighbouring cottage. You can still see the old wooden door and the brick surround that was once the village cage for St Osyth, preserved as the ground floor house extension. It remains a private dwelling, though a plaque on the external brick wall tells its story. It is reputed to be haunted and a there is a book available about the paranormal phenomena that a recent owner experienced.  (13)

The above excerpt is taken from my book - The Liminal Shore: Witchcraft, Mystery & Folklore of the Essex Coast, published by Troy Books.  Click on the cover below to buy now.

"Thoroughly steeped in a sense of place..all in all it's a cracking book, and a must be for would-be marsh wizards, psych geographers and folklorists alike"  The Enquiring Eye

“This book will be read in the decades to come, still delivering stabs of  wonder and delight”  David Southwell. @HooklandGuide

"Highly recommended - a very good and informative read"  Nigel G Pearson

Notes.

1. Essex Witches by Glynn H. Morgan, p 25

2. Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History by Owen Davies, p 110

3. Essex Witches by Peter C Brown

4. East Anglian Witches and Wizards by Michael Howard

5. Witchcraft in England by Christina Hole

6. Essex Witches by Peter C Brown, pp 23 - 29

7. Witchcraft in England, 1558-1618 by Barbara Rosen, p 103

8. East Anglian Witches and Wizards by Michael Howard, p 43

9. A typed interpretation panel on card, written by Cecil Williamson, concerning the story of the burial and remains of Ursula Kemp, a condemned and executed witch. Cecil Williamson Object Label Collection, Museum of Witchcraft & Magic collection, Boscastle, Cornwall.

10. Ursula Kemp DVD by John Worland. Fade to Black Television.

11. Letter to This Essex magazine, October 1973 from S. C. Bruce of St Osyth

12. Clacton and Frinton Gazette. 22nd January 2016.

13. Spirits of the Cage: True Accounts of Living in a Haunted Medieval Prison by Richard Estep and Vanessa Mitchell.

© Alex Langstone