Meg o' Meldon.

I grew up in Morpeth, Northumberland, as a family we would go on little jaunts into the countryside, a day out at Cresswell, or Wallington Hall, maybe a picnic under Winter's Gibbet (The Tale Of William Winter). The one thing my father loved was storytelling, his children's stories about Bib and Bob the water rats was a classic that was sadly never published, and now they are gone. One story that remains with me to this day is "Mad" Meg o' Meldon, the "mad" bit may have been an embellishment on my fathers part.

He would tell us that she was a witch who drowned herself in an inch of water, she could shapeshift herself into the guise of animals, and she would jump out and scare unwary travellers on the approach to Meldon bridge and cause accidents.

I remember in the late 1980s driving through Meldon with a car full of friends and my cousin, I was regaling them with the dreaded tale, just before the bridge I got to the shapeshifting bit and a rabbit ran out, I slammed on the brakes and my cousin screamed in shear terror, great times.

So, who was Meg o' Meldon? There seems to have been an old oral tradition regarding her, I trawled the newspapers back to the 17th century searching for clues and found that the mid 19th century was a time in which old folk tales were all the rage. So here we are, how a lady became Meg o' Meldon.

It was the famous historian John Hodgson who brought the identity of Meg to the masses, in his History of Northumberland, volume 2 (1832). He identified her as Margaret Selby, who became Lady Margaret Fenwick of Wallington. It's a good tale so I think the story is better told by a journalist rather than a historian.

History of Northumberland, volume 2 (1832)

Newcastle Daily Chronicle - Thursday 26th December 1861;

In the almost ruined mansion of Seaton Delaval, situated on the sea coast a few miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne, there was to be seen, a few years ago, the portrait of a female, which, from the singular dress displayed in it, and the remarkable countenance of the woman represented, was sure to attract the notice of every observant visitor.

Seaton Delaval Hall in 1822, prior to the fire which left it ruinous.

The person who was thus portrayed was the Lady Margaret Fenwick; but if you had asked the old keeper of the hall for any information respecting her, you would only have learnt that "that was Meg o' Meldon, sure enough," for by no other name is this somewhat extraordinary woman known to the rural inhabitants of Northumberland.

Meg was the daughter of one of the principal inhabitants of Newcastle, and the wife of Sir William Fenwick, of Wallington. Her husband died early, and she was left with an only child - a son. Her attachment for her offspring, however, is the only good which tradition can tell of her. In every other respect she bore a terrible character.

She resided principally at Hartington Hall, not far from Morpeth, and there she lived from year to year, scraping together wealth of every description, and seldom being troubled in business affairs with any scruples of conscience.

Hartington Hall, photographed in 1863

She lived in the most wretched style, denying herself and the one or two lean servants which she kept everything but the merest necessaries of life. She had, too, a propensity which by no means added to her popularity, for appropriating the smallest savings of the most miserable husbandmen who came within her reach, as well as the more tempting gains of her higher class tenants. As she grew older, she became worse and worse.

She turned off all her servants save one, and she took to living solely on such vegetables as her own extensive gardens provided. But though thus almost starving herself, she continued to live to a great age; at last her oppressed dependants came to the conclusion that she had formed a solemn covenant with Satan, who had agreed to allow her to live as long as nature would permit, and to accumulate wealth rapidly during the whole of her lifetime, on the condition which is generally inserted in the bonds of his Satanic Majesty.

And so the old woman lived on, and grew richer and richer, until she absolutely rolled into wealth. But all her ill gotten gains brought her little peace of mind; she was ever haunted by the fear of being robbed; and the terrified inhabitants of the country round Hartington used often to remark her wandering by night as well as by day round certain spots in the neighbourhood of Meldon, which in after years they did not fail to recall to mind.

At last, however, she died, and had a grand funeral as could have been wished for. She had survived her son, so the estate descended to a distant relative, who very quickly made Meg's money go in ways the mere thought of which would have been sufficient in her early days to cut off that excellent woman prematurely.

Meldon Church circa 1820

But she had scarcely been in her grave a month when rumours began to circulate among the country people as to her having been compelled to leave it by the master she had served so well whilst on earth. She had been condemned, it was said, to "walk" and to sleep alternately for seven years at a time, until certain bags of money, which report stated she had secreted about her estate, were found and appropriated.

Numerous were the tales which now began to circulate respecting her supernatural post mortem appearances. The whole countryside became alarmed, and he was a bold man who dared go any distance after nightfall. There were certain spots which she seemed particularly to affect. One of these was the old bridge at Meldon, over the Wansbeck; another was a dilapidated well near Meldon Tower.

Once a farmer, riding home from market, happened to be passing over the bridge about midnight, when he was somewhat surprised to see a large black dog lying directly in his way upon it. He took his whip and gave the brute a smart cut, when to his horror, it suddenly arose in the form of a female of tremendous dimensions, who, seizing him by the throat nearly stifled him before she relaxed her deadly hold. When she did so, she flung the luckless wight into the bottom of his cart, exclaiming, "let sleeping dogs lie," and then sprung over the battlements of the bridge, and disappeared in the clear waters of the Wansbeck.

The approach to Meldon Bridge, the old bridge is long gone.

To this day there are some of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood who would as soon think of walking into a blast furnace as of rousing a sleeping dog, especially if its coat should be black. Then again, there are some who declared they had seen Meg in the form of a beautiful female, who tried by looks and gestures to allure them towards the well aforesaid, and who tore her hair and seemed to be overcome with rage and vexation when she found that they did not succumb to her fascinations.

But though everybody was so chary of having anything to do with her during the hours of darkness, there were not a few who in broad daylight tried to enrich themselves by becoming the fortunate discoverers of some of her hidden treasure. Many an attempt was made with this end in view, but all without avail; till at last people began to lose faith in her reputed riches, and gave up thinking about, or looking for them.

The new bridge, built in 1911. (https://www.bridgesonthetyne.co.uk/)

There was, however, one man who was either less superstitious, or more covetous, than his neighbours, and he was determined to make a desperate effort to enrich himself. He would look for Meg's treasure at the very time when Meg herself was known to be hovering over the places where it was concealed. Three times did the bold countryman walk over Meldon Bridge, and sit by the side of Meldon Well, at the dread hour of midnight.

The first two nights nothing occurred to reward his bravery; but on the third, as he was about to leave the well disappointed and weary, he suddenly saw Meg herself standing before him just as she had looked during her lifetime. In a moment his boldness forsook him, and he fell upon his knees trembling with fear; he was somewhat reassured, however, when the unearthly being who stood before him addressed him in the most commonplace accents, merely telling him to return to the same spot the next night at twelve exactly, when he would have an opportunity of enriching himself forever; but he was further told, from the time he left his house, till he returned to it again with the money, not to utter a single word either to himself or  anybody else.

Approximate site of Meg's Well - Armstrong Map 1769

To Hodge's mind the sole condition which had been laid upon him seemed a very simple and easy one; and it was, therefore, with good hopes of his success that he returned to the appointed place the next night, provided with a long chain and grappling irons, to assist him in his exploit.

When he reached the well he found an ordinary looking man standing beside it, who, without a word being said on either side, took the chain, fastened Hodge to it, and then lowered him gradually down the well. After sinking an immense depth, he found himself on a level with the water, of which there was not, however, nearly as much as he had expected, and on looking into it, he easily discovered, just beneath its surface, an enormous leather bag. This he fastened to the grappling irons, and giving the signal to his assistant, was quickly drawn up to the top.

With some difficulty the bag was raised; several times it slipped, and seemed likely to fall; but at last it was safely placed on the ground; at seeing which, poor Hodge, in his joy, quite forgot the command he had received the previous night, and exclaimed in ecstacy:

"There! all the devils alive can't help me getting it now!"

But alas! he was mistaken; the instant the fatal words escaped his lips, the bag slid into the well, and fell like a leaden weight to the bottom, whilst he received a sudden blow which deprived him of his consciousness; and had he not been discovered the next morning by his anxious wife, and removed home, he would probably have died from the fever which attacked him, in consequence of the excitement and exposure. When he recovered, he went back to his everyday work, like a wise man, and gave up dreaming about Meg o' Meldon and her money bags.

Meldon Hall

Many years passed on without anything fresh turning up respecting the hidden treasure; but at last a circumstance occurred which brought a portion of it, at any rate, to light, though in a manner by no means ghostly or "awsum" as might have been expected. The school house at Meldon was a building of great antiquity, and one which had suffered considerably from the ravages of time.

Some sixty or seventy years ago, as those of the children who took their dinners at school were emptying the contents of their satchels in the absence of the master, who was enjoying his midday repast, they were alarmed by a portentous crack in the ancient ceiling above their heads, and in a moment a portion of it came down, and with it - a veritable bag of Meg's long sought money!

Age had rotted the bag, and bursting in its fall, its contents were scattered over the floor of the school room, causing a fine scramble among the fortunate youngsters, who very quickly had the precious pieces stowed away in their pockets, and with true northern doggedness refused to deliver them up to their master, who was sadly disappointed when he heard of the "find" which had fallen on the lot of his varlets during his absence.

Poor Meg has now been dead more than two hundred years; but as yet this is all of her long concealed and oft sought for treasure that has ever been discovered; and it is by no means likely that the monomaniacs who still occasionally waste their time in looking for it, will ever become the richer for their pains.

Meldon Hall Estate.

The Scrapfaggot Witch Stone of Great Leighs, Essex.

Great Leighs, October 1944.

The second world war had been raging for five years and the allied liberation of Europe was into its fourth month, rural England was awash with military traffic, the heavy machinery of war heading south.

Unfortunately many of the roads were not up to the job, so many a bulldozer was employed to widen the thoroughfares to enable the passage of large and wide vehicles. Great Leighs in Essex was no exception, a US Army bulldozer clearing a section Dratchett Lane managed to dislodge a stone on the side of the road close to the St. Annes Castle pub on Scrapfaggot Green.

This was not good, that stone was there for a reason. According to the Sunday Mirror of the 8th October 1944;

"Two hundred years ago a witch was burned at the stake at the crossroads still known as Scrapfaggot Green, though there is no green there now. She was buried under the ashes of the fire that burned her, and a great stone was placed over her breast to hold her down. And for 200 years there she lay, untroubled and untroubling.

St. Annes Castle Pub (now just The Castle) Witch Stone on the right.

But war swept through the village, along Dratchett Lane and over the crossroads. The narrow, and winding lane would not take heavy traffic. So a bulldozer widened it - and brushed the Witch Stone aside."

Unless this witch had committed treason or had murdered her husband through witchcraft she would not have been burned at the stake, hanging was the accepted form of execution for witchcraft in England, however, scrapfaggot could be a corruption of scratchfaggot meaning helper of the Devil. Be that as it may, strange things were afoot in Great Leighs.

Sunday Mirror - 8th October 1944;

"It was from that moment that the people of Great Leighs date the strange happenings in the village. Now there's hardly a man or woman who has not some story to tell of happenings that don't fit in with ordinary common sense.

Councillor Arthur Sykes, Chief Warden, and village leading light, told me: 'Every day I hear of new mischief in the village. Alf Quilter, the shepherd will tell you of sheep straying from his fields where there is no hurdle out of place or a hole in the hedges big enough for a rabbit to run through.

Great Leighs in the 1940s

People have told me of hearing the church bells being rung at midnight. Yesterday the old church clock was found to be two hours slow, and I don't remember it being wrong before."

Councillor Sykes is no superstitious Essexman, he is a hard headed Lancashireman. 'I don't believe in witches,' he says, 'but then my great grandad didn't believe in radio. He'd have thought I was daft if I'd told him that a man could tune into a little box in America and be heard in Blackpool.

No I don't believe in witches - but I've got to admit there have been strange happenings here since that old stone was shifted.'"

Following this interview the "hard headed Lancashireman" found that his geese had disappeared into thin air! Other strange occurrences were some long heavy scaffolding poles had been moved and scattered around like twigs, some painter and decorators tools, paints, pots and brushes were gone, later they were found under a bed at the top of some rickety stairs in an attic. 

A dead chicken with it's neck twisted was found in a water butt, the local vicar scoffed at this saying it was the work of an animal, then he fell over a stone that was in his way, the stone was not there before, it had recently been moved there, it took three men to lift it away and no one had a clue as to where the stone had come from.

After a calm and still night farmer Ernest Withen said the following morning his haystacks were found "tumbled and spread around his yard," his carts had all been turned around in their sheds, something that took several men half an hour to put right.

Back in London these strange happenings were related to the paranormal investigator Harry Price, Price was famous for his investigations into the haunting of Borley Rectory.

Harry Price had a theory;

"It had been proved to the hilt that poltergeists exist. In my book 'Poltergeist Over England' I have listed over 500 cases of such spirits tricks. Many of them have been put down to the influence of witches.

I have several stories like yours. The spirit usually confines itself to one house, but there have been cases before of a whole village being affected."

Well that's that cleared up! The good folks of Great Leighs and Harry Price decided on a direct approach, they had the stone put back.

Sunday Mirror - Sunday 15th October 1944;

"It was partly public opinion and partly the advice of Mr Harry Price that led to this strange little ceremony. The villagers, led by the Chairman of the local Council, went in a body to the bleak cross roads and pushed and tugged the two ton monument back into place - just as it had been when their forefathers burned the old witch in the 17th century.

'That ought to keep the cunning little old woman comfortable,' said Bill Waver with a sigh of relief. Only the previous day the witch had had a final fling. The victim was Mr Conrad Moth, who found his rabbits roosting in the chicken house with the hens.

Although Mr Price doesn't altogether subscribe to the theory that the witch herself came out at midnight to push over a farmer's hayricks, to let sheep and cattle stray, or to dump chickens in water butts, he believes that the moving of the stone and the emotion it aroused may have loosened a mischievous spirit - or poltergeist - in the neighbourhood.

As Shepherd Alf Quilter said, as he watched the ceremony 'I reckon the witch must have been at home when we put her front door back' for today it is all quiet in Scrapfaggot Green."

So who was this witch? According to Mr R. J. Thompson's article "The Witch Hunter" in the Essex Newsman of Tuesday 27th February 1945, she was perhaps one of the poor souls who met her end at the hands of the infamous Matthew Hopkins at Chelmsford in July 1645.

After this trial 15 women were executed, many more men and women were imprisoned in Chelmsford Castle accused of witchcraft, all on the flimsiest and down right far fetched of evidence.

There was an interesting article in the Perfect Occurrences of Both Houses of Parliament and Martiall Affairs in August 1646, that stated;

"From Hartford, letters tell us that two were condemned for Witches, who should have been executed the last Saturday, but were repreaved in regard that some had suppositions of better things towards them, some feared the Witchtakers seek the price of blood more than to discover Witches, which is a fearful thing if true, as some were hanged at Chelmsford in Essex."

Such rough justice would make a poltergeist of the best of us. The events that year were very prankish, and no doubt a hoax was being perpetrated, could the culprits be found at the nearby US Army base, or local wags out for some fun, we will probably never know.

Jane Pye And The Morpeth Witch Trial of 1651.

Mid seventeenth century Britain was a volatile place, we had religious extremism, civil war and regicide. In 1649 the Scots Covenanter parliament passed an extension on the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563, this made it a capital crime to blaspheme, beat or curse against your parents, worship false gods, or consult familiars or devils.

This sparked a rise in witch hunts in Scotland that soon spilled over the border into Northumberland, at Newcastle the Puritan magistrates employed a Scottish witch finder to help them with this scourge. He would receive 20 shillings per witch found. Of course witch hunts were not uncommon in England, there had been witch hunts, on and off, since the fifteenth century. The infamous Matthew Hopkins had been terrorising East Anglia during the 1640s, up to his death from tuberculosis in 1647.

All you had to do was to denounce a woman as a witch and she would be arrested and placed on trial for her life. During 1650 thirty women of Newcastle were taken to Newgate Gaol, and one, Jane Martin, was taken to Newcastle Castle, as this was the prison for those resident in Northumberland.

All 31 were tried, on the 21st August 1650 sixteen were found guilty and were hanged along with other malefactors on the Town Moor. Witches in England were typically hanged not burned as they were in Scotland, the only witches burned in England had other crimes levelled against them such as treason or murdering their husbands. But this was not the end of this persecution, it is now 1651, and we travel north to the charming market town of Morpeth.

Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages and Proceedings - 6th October - 13th October 1651.

"From Newcastle October 4 thus: 

The Gaol delivery at Morpeth began on Wednesday last and ended on Saturday night; Col. Wastel was judge, there was six notorious thieves brought from Carlisle and five of them was condemned, and twelve more, whereof one Armstrong was to be pressed to death for murdering a woman (for saving his land) and two witches were condemned, old Mistress Pye of Morpeth, and Anne Cheney of Sheales; 18 of them were hanged and Mistress Pye was the first.

There was about 30 felons in prison, and many out upon bond that were not tried, because Colonel Wastel would not stay any longer, but he was very honest for the time he was there, (Mistress Pye's gold would not save her) Col. Fitch was at the Gaol delivery, and went to Wallington on Saturday night, and so for Carlisle, to provide and make ready for his march into Scotland.

The list of felons at Morpeth follows;

Frances Anderson, alias David Shealhoxson

Robert Armstrong, alias Hob The Lord

James Armstrong, alias Kinsmonth

Mr Elliot, alias Mow The Wallet

Henry Noble, George Armstrong, Will Duglasse, Robert Fletcher, James Turner, John Kea, John Henderson, John Thompson, Alex Hunter, Rich Dowthait, James Foster, Thomas Greene.

John Armstrong pressed to death to save his land, for killing a woman.

Mistress Pye of Morpeth, and Anne Cheney of Sheales, both witches."

Colonel Wastel was most likely the Parliamentarian officer Colonel Daniel Axtel who was in charge of security during the trial of Charles I in 1649, and was involved in the Cromwellian war in Ireland where he won several battles. 

His killing of prisoners would later get him court marshalled and sent back to England. 

After the restoration in 1659 he was arrested and in 1660 was executed at Tyburn by being hanged, drawn and quartered for regicide.

The others hanged with Pye were quite possibly mosstroopers, brigands who were very active on the borders at this time, the mosstroopers were the descendants of the border reivers.

So who were the Pye family?

According to "Hodgson the Historian" (John Hodgson-Hinde) in the Morpeth Herald - Saturday 12th January 1861;

"The family were old and respectable occupants of this town. Richard Pye was a bailiff in 1580 and 1584; John Pye in 1595, 1607, and 1612; Thomas Pye in 1628 and John Pye in 1632 and 1647, and Francis Pye in other successive years.

Three of the name Pye were rectors of Morpeth in the seventeenth century. A lady of the family, Jane Pye, was executed for witchcraft in 1658..... It is certain, however, that the present Queen's Head, in Bridge Street, in this town, belonged to this family."

The Queen's Head Prior to The Mock Tudor Facelift

The Morpeth Witch Trials were the subject of a lecture by Mr Jas Fergusson at a meeting of the Young Men's Mutual Instruction Association in the St. Georges Presbyterian Schoolroom, published in the Morpeth Herald - Saturday 5th November 1881;

"In dealing with the Morpeth witches he told first of all how the renowned magician of the twelfth century, Michael Scott, undertook to make the tide flow right up to Morpeth, and how through the fear and curiosity of a woman it stopped at Sheepwash.

Coming then to the seventeenth century, full details were given of the famous Morpeth witch case......which attracted a great attendance of magistrates in the town, the accusation made by Ann Armstrong against Ann Baites minutely described; also the burning of Jane Pye in Goosehill, and the appearance of the 'woman in white' - said to have been Margaret Milbourne - on the High Stanners, as testified by Isabell Fletcher, and added to by Dorothy Himers. The absurdities, inconsistencies, incongruities of the evidence were fully pointed out. Both Ann Baites and Margaret Milbourne survived the accusation."

A more detailed account came from an article on the Pye family published in the - Morpeth Herald - Thursday 2nd October 1997;

"A very surprising fact is that a lady of this family was convicted of witchcraft in 1658 and at Goosehill was executed.

Ann Armstrong, a notorious witchfinder, accused a coven, which among others included Ann Bates of Morpeth, wife of a tanner, 'of dancing with the devil at Riding Bridgend.' It seems she did not suffer the fate of Jane Pye."

Jane Pye was not burned at the stake, but the execution site is interesting, Goosehill. In later centuries Fair Moor was used, and Morpeth Gaol, but this is the first time I have heard of Goosehill as a place of execution, I believe a Gaol from the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century was located in this area.

A Map Showing Morpeth Castle 1604

Further information concerning Goosehill was published in an article called "Disappearing Morpeth" - Morpeth Herald - Friday 17th July 1964;

"The demolition of the Goosehill cottages has begun; that is, the terrace of five or six with another short terrace behind and running to the river. There is a tradition that these little houses were built for warders at the county gaol.....

Goosehill itself, by that name, goes back to 1658, when Jane Pye, of the family that lived in the Queen's Head was executed at this place for witchcraft, just two years after the date on the coat of arms of the Pyes in the hotel building. It does not have this name on the 1604 map, however, but instead a partly illegible name like 'Watgrene.'"

Ever since the 1861 and 1881 newspaper articles the date of Jane Pye's execution has been erroneously placed in 1658 instead of 1651, it has also been stated that she was burned, this was not the policy of executing witches in England, she was hanged. Another poor victim of religious fanaticism, among thousands.