Pleshey, Essex Walk

On last Sunday 16th Gill and I did a 5.5 mile circular walk around the ancient village of Pleshey. Home to a famous medieval castle (now long gone) mentioned in Shakespeare's "Richard II". We have walked in the area a number of times but used this time a route from Country Walking magazine.

We saw near a lake, a much smaller bird repeatedly appear to attack and drive off a much larger Red Kite. I assume competition over food/territory?  

Mostly easy going, flat countryside, with a very muddy/clay final stretch. The weather was dry but overcast but there was still plenty of big Essex skies. We stopped for lunch outside the Great Waltham Guildhall. The former home of Sir William Wade who at the Tower of London interrogated (tortured?) Guy Fawkes over the Gunpowder plot.

Great Waltham is also known as the home of Elizabeth Lowys who was executed as a supposed "Witch" in 1565.

On the "listening bench" we sat upon for lunch, next to the war memorial, there was a QR code that you could use to download personal accounts by local residents of life in the village during World War 2, with reminisces of German bombing raids, the arrival of American servicemen and singing Italian prisoners of war. 

We drove from East London in around 50 minutes but you can use public transport via train to Cheltenham then bus 48 or X10. We stopped off on the way home for a drink at the George and Dragon pub in Wanstead. 

Hatfield Broad Oak from Takeley walk - Remembering a European Genocide in Hellman's Cross

This picture college is from a lovely sunny and warm walk last month in Essex near Bishop Stortford.

Only 8.75 miles in length and 36 minutes from Newham by car.

Check "Go4Walk" website here https://www.go4awalk.com/walks/walk-search/walk.php?walk=e152 (error on website site that suggests Essex is in Lincolnshire wolds - it is not!)

Quiet, pretty, gentile rolling countryside amongst chocolate box ancient villages. We hardly saw a soul during the walk.

We stopped for lunch at Hellman's Cross, which is now a peaceful rural hamlet but at this spot in  1683, local villager Elizabeth Abbot, was burnt to death as a witch.

We stopped off here on another walk in 2011. I can't find on the internet more information about Elizabeth Abbot but I note this report that :-

"From 1484 until around 1750 some 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Western Europe. Most supposed witches were usually old women, and invariably poor. Any who were unfortunate enough to be ‘crone-like’, snaggle-toothed, sunken cheeked and having a hairy lip were assumed to possess the ‘Evil Eye’ ! 

If they also had a cat this was taken a proof, as witches always had a ‘familiar’, the cat being the most common.

Many unfortunate women were condemned on this sort of evidence and hanged after undergoing appalling torture. The ‘pilnie-winks’ (thumb screws) and iron ‘caspie-claws’ (a form of leg irons heated over a brazier) usually got a confession from the supposed witch.". 

A shameful statistic in our near history which we should remember.

Elizabeth Abbot burnt to death for being a Witch 1683

Last Sunday I went for a walk in Essex starting in Takeley. A few miles into the walk in the tiny hamlet of Helmans Cross, Great Canfield I came across a "Parish Stocks" and "whipping post". Which was vaguely interesting. 

What was more unusual was that this idyllic rural country crossroad was where Elizabeth Abbot was burnt to death as a witch in 1683. It is pretty shocking to think that just over 300 years ago that we were murdering people by burning them alive for being "witches". The vast majority were of course not a witch but were mentally ill, or had fallen out with their neighbours or were just different.

I've tried to google and get more information about Elizabeth and what happened but apart from this I can find nothing.