Curse
The Barren Circle
Where seven Lollards burned, the wheat refused to grow.
See it clearly
- What's there
- 1931 memorial at a hillside field edge above Old Amersham
- Legend from
- 1506/1511-1521; barren spot noted 1811
- Tone
- Dark history
On the hill above Old Amersham, seven people were burned for reading the Bible in English. For centuries, people said the ground itself refused to forget.
In the early 1500s Amersham was a stronghold of the Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe who wanted the Bible in English. William Tylsworth was burned in a field here, his own daughter forced to light the fire, and one woman and five more men followed in 1521. Their deaths seemed to leave a mark on the land. In 1811 a writer to the Gentleman's Magazine described the supposed grave of a martyr, and in 1846 a man living opposite the field reported that wheat grew all around a large round patch where nothing would grow, however deep it was dug or manured. A memorial was raised nearby in 1931.