Stories & Tales of Moyse Hall

Moyse hall was built around 1180. It has been a tavern gaol and workhouse. It is now a museum with fine collections.

The Gibbet cage on display circa 1700’s was made for Jonathan Nicols for the murder of Sarah Nicols his sister.

Murderers were hanged above the site of their crime. Bodies were put on display. Common practise was to tar; nail and part boil the body. Footplates were used to stop the feet dropping off.

Pirates were sentenced to hang for 3 washings of the tide at Wapping dock. Generally criminals of the time were left to rot until they finally fell down or were given over for medical dissection. Criminals were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground

Warrant badges were painted truncheons. In gaol prisoners were secured with many chains and weights, they had to pay to have them taken off. They also had to pay for a bed, linen and any food.

Mantraps were commonly used to stop stealing and poaching up until the 1820’s. They were designed to hold you until the sheriff arrived.

Excavations in the 1840’s unearthed 20 wolf skulls which adds flavour to the story of Edmund and the wolf. Edmund Saxon king of East Angles, a devout Christian, was captured by raiding Danes and shot full of arrows when he refused to renounce his faith. His head was cut off and thrown in a wood. When his friends came looking for him, legend has it that a wolf who was guarding the head shouted ‘Here, here’. The arrows, the wolf and the crowned head still form the coat of arms of the Borough of St Edmundsbury.

William Corder was found guilty for the infamous Red Barn murder of his lover Maria Martin. A death bust was made and a book of the account of his trial bound in his skin.

Superstition and fear was particularly high during the 1600’s.  The held belief was ‘thou mustn’t suffer a witch to live' and to deny witchcraft was to deny the bible. Witches bottles were used to trap evil spirits and usually buried in the floors of a house.

Well worn shoes and dead cats were also placed in the walls of a house to protect occupants from witches, evil and bad luck.

One way to detect a witch was to place a church key on the bible, twirl it around and see if it pointed at the accused.

A witches iron under the doormat was seen as certain protection for the house with the belief ‘Iron, cold iron, is master of them all’

The use of witches' dolls was seen as a crime as they were generally used to curse a person.

One record tells of how a Bishop took ill after dinner and died. His masters of the house was charged with the crime because a witches doll was found behind the bed.

Another story involved a noble woman Margery Jourdemayne and her servant. Both were charged with trying to hex the king using a witch doll. Although Margery was found not guilty, her servant was burnt at the stake.

One farmer claimed that two of his pigs had been bewitched so he cut off their tails and let the blood fall into a vessel which he then boiled to draw the witch out. It is said that the witch drew near but then the spell was spoilt and  she escaped. 

Other tales tell of witches shouting ‘toot, toot’ and flying around the villages. It was believed that they consorted with the devil and had helpers in the form of imps, insects and various small animals. 

Thomas de Thornham led a riot in 1327, the group seized the keys of all the gates of the town and killed a servant of the Abbey. They then went to breakfast at Moyse Hall which was a tavern at the time.

Stories say that something terrible then happened which struck fear into the town. The woman serving the group came to take money for the meal she had prepared and as ‘she looked into the cellar close to them she saw a most horrible devil’.

‘All of a tremble at his horrible countenance she drew back her foot which she had put across the threshold, but not without punishment for instantly her foot was roasted by infernal fire and fell rotting from her body’.

During the Great riots the Abbey Gate was destroyed by the townspeople who were angry at the power of the monasteries. They used barrels filled with pitch tar which were then lit  and rolled down Cook Row straight into Abbey Gate. When it was rebuilt it was placed slightly off centre to prevent this ever happening again.

Maude Carew

Maude Carew was a high born lady of the royal court and intimate friend of the Queen. She tired of the superficiality of court life and retired to take vows at bury priory.  King Henry V1 and his queen Margaret of Anjou came to Bury planning to put Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester on trial. He was a favourite of the king but the queen saw him as an enemy.  She decided to ‘do away with him’ before the trial and recruited Maude into her plans. 

Cardinal Beaufort was called to give Maude lessons in poisoning. Using an absolutely lethal poison, the Duke was murdered but she carelessly spilled some of it on herself, and collapsed near Gloucester’s rooms.  She was discovered by Brother Bernard, a close friend, who horrified by what she had done, cursed her never to rest but to walk in the churchyard for eternity, and thus stricken, she died. He returned her body to the priory trying to cover her crime and was equally cursed.

Is the Grey Lady apparition seen around Bury St Edmunds Maude Carew?

Sightings are said to have occurred of a grey female form in many places. Buildings on Angel Hill is where the ghost is reported to pop in and out of walls in houses and doors, at Capola House this lonely figure has been seen sitting in the front bar, shying away in a corner, at the abbey she has been spotted floating amongst the ruins and at St Saviour's Hospital ruins she has been seen drifting several times. Recently, poltergeist-like activity has been reported at the Tesco store, Fornham Road in the store's canteen, with some people speculating that it is indeed the infamous Grey Lady.

The Screaming Skull

A frightful screaming skull kept appearing in days gone by, no one knows why.

Legend has it that the skull of William Corder, infamous for the Red Barn Murder of Maria Marten, was stored in the prison, it was thought to be possessed by evil and a number of sounds and spectral figures were seen around it.

Another story says that Doctor Kilner, the acting physician at the time took the skull and polished it and kept it in his house but books would fly around and other things would move on their own so he got rid of it.

It is also said that  in the 1850s  two boys found the skull and jokingly buried it in the abbey gardens. Once this was known the skull was quickly removed and buried in an unknown place somewhere in Bury. A book bound in his skin is on display in the museum along with his tanned scalp giving rise to tales that Corder's hair grew mysteriously after his death.

The story of his capture for the murder has a certain spooky feel to it.
Maria Marten, 26 year old daughter of mole catcher Thomas Marten said farewell to her young son, her sister and her stepmother, then set out to meet William Corder, her 24 year old lover, in the Red Barn. At his request she went dressed as a man. Her family never saw or heard from her again.

At the time of her disappearance her family was worried, her boyfriend Corder's explanations were vague, unsatisfactory or improbable. He told them she was well; that she was staying with a Miss Rowland in Yarmouth.

On October 18 1827 he sent a letter to Marias father Thomas Marten, saying that they were man and wife. He told the family that Maria was staying in Newport, Isle of Wight, and expressed surprise that they had not answered Maria's letter describing the marriage. Trying to cover his tracks, he suggested that Mr Marten take down the address for a reply and then burn the letters. In letters to Peter Matthews (the father of Maria's son) he wrote that she had hurt her hand and could not write. Her family felt increasingly alarmed.

Maria's stepmother dreamed about Maria. Twice, (once before and once after Christmas) she had dreamed that Maria was murdered and buried in the Red Barn in Polstead. She had not wanted to tell her husband because he would have thought her superstitious but at last she asked her husband to search the Red Barn. For some time he did nothing, but at last gave in to her nagging. With a friend he went to the barn and upon prodding the floor with his mole-spud, he found a soft spot. He dug out some eighteen inches (50cm) of loose earth and discovered a body stuffed into a sack. A green silk handkerchief showed through. Mr Marten recognised it as one belonging to Corder which Maria had been wearing when she left the house.

Shortly afterwards, William Corder was arrested in London. He was taken to Polstead for the inquest and sent to Bury St Edmunds to stand trial. By the time he was being tried, plays are being performed, in Terms of Victorian melodrama he had become the moustache twiddling bad guy with Mariah being the rosy cheeked innocent. The story was such a big media sensation that when he was bought back to Suffolk, he was not allowed to stay in the local prison as crowds were gathering he apparently spent a, farcical night handcuffed to local officer in local pub in same bed.

At the trial he was found guilty on 11 points of murder including shooting, strangling, stabbing and burying her alive. Mariah’s head was bought into the court as evidence, it was thought later that surgeons probably damaged her body during the autopsy however; Corder was blamed for all of this.

He was sentenced to death by hanging outside Moyse Hall drawing an audience of 10,000 people.  Afterwards his body was to be anatomised (dissected). The skeleton was kept, and the scalp and part of the skin were preserved.

The surgeon, George Creed, later had an account of the trial bound in leather made from Corder's skin.