WitchLegendary
The Witch of Walkern
Accused of flying over fields and gates, she was condemned to hang.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- The village church where she lived; her cottage is lost
- Legend from
- 1712
- Tone
- Dark history
Coming into Walkern, you're entering the village of Jane Wenham, condemned as a witch in 1712, one of the last such convictions in England.
Jane Wenham, a poor elderly woman of Church End, Walkern, was accused of witchcraft after a farmer blamed her for dying livestock and called her a witch. When she complained, the rector made the farmer pay her a shilling. Soon afterwards the rectory's teenage servant, Anne Thorn, began suffering fits and told of being driven over fields and gates by an old woman, and a bundle of twigs was burnt as a witch's charm. Jane was arrested, searched for witch marks and tried at Hertford in 1712. The jury convicted her, but the sceptical judge secured a royal pardon, and she ended her days under protection near Hertford.