Big Interview - Elizabeth Ashworth
From her attic room above the village pub, barmaid Lizzie Dean looked out over the churchyard to see the man she loved emerging from church with his new wife.
The fact that he had Lizzie's best friend on his arm, did nothing to assuage the Chipping girl's anguish.
Aged just 20 and utterly deceived by two of the most important people in her life, she wrote a suicide note and hanged herself...
Not many miles away, in Catforth, Margery Hilton was also having man trouble; specifically with the one to whom she paid rent on her tiny cottage.
Margery, being better known as Meg Shelton the Fylde witch, made a bet with her landlord that if she could turn herself into a hare and race his dogs from Wesham to Catforth, the cottage would be hers.
According to legend, the only stipulation was that his particularly ferocious black dog should not be sent after her.
Unfortunately the cad went back on his word and freed the dog, which managed to bite her on the heel before she got inside, leaving her with a permanent limp.
Two tales of woe which, on the face of it, are unlinked, especially as poor Lizzie departed this life fully 130 years after Meg toppled off her broomstick.
But they form an unlikely partnership in local author Elizabeth Ashworth's new book Lancashire: Who Lies Beneath? published this week.
Preston-born Elizabeth's latest literary labour is the result of wandering around country churchyards and urban cemeteries, investigating the stories behind some of the headstone inscriptions:
"It may seem an odd thing to be tramping around graveyards, but I met lots of other people doing the same thing, though mostly they were seeking their ancestors." she says.
"I think graveyards are a good place to get in touch with history."
Her travels around the "old" county of Lancashire took her from Formby to Freckleton; Ribchester to Rochdale and many points in between.
There are 30 stories in all, featuring such diverse characters as Bolton's spinning mule inventor Samuel Crompton and Gisburn's hymn composer Francis Duckworth.
Earls and witches; a dialect poet, a highwayman and an opera singer share the pages with victims of plague, pit and aeroplane disaster.
"Sometimes the graves are sad, especially if the person has died young or in an accident and I was particularly saddened by all the children who had died in the Freckleton air disaster during the Second World War," says Elizabeth, who lives in Blackburn.
" It was a huge tragedy to lose so many children from one village. But in other cases, when a person has lived a long and fruitful life, their grave seems more peaceful."
Readers are told where the graves and monuments can be found, so readers can go and discover them for themselves.
As for poor Lizzie Dean...her ghost is said to haunt the Sun Inn at Chipping.
Although the note found clutched in her hand requested burial near the path which led to the church door – so that those who betrayed her would be reminded of their treachery every Sunday – her grave is round the back because the law stipulated suicide victims could not be laid to rest in consecrated ground.
And Meg Shelton?
A life of spell-casting and stealing from local farmers was brought to an end in 1705 when she was found crushed beneath a barrel and a wall in the cottage for which she was presumably still forking out the rent.
Legend has it that such was her reluctance to be buried that, after two escape attempts, villagers finally hauled a huge boulder over her grave at St Anne's Church, Woodplumpton, where it keeps her hemmed in to his day.
*Lancashire: Who Lies Beneath? is published by Countryside Books at 8.99 and available from bookshops, some garden centres and attractions, or direct from the publishers at www.countrysidebooks.co.uk
Don't forget to pick up your all new look Saturday Lancashire Evening Post
Email to a friend
Print this page - Popular
- Most comments
- Most shared
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Local pages
Looking for a...
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Preston
Thursday 29 July 2010
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 15 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 28 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 15 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South
