TRAIL
START - Come to junction 13 of M65 (53"50'36.95N 2"13'11.17W)
Exit along the 'ByPass' towards Fence A6068 (coming from West it is first right).
Go forward for about half a mile, and you cross Carr Hall Road where Carre Hall once stood. This was where James Devise dug up the turf, but was later hanged for his little protest, as this was considered 'witchcraft'. More
Another mile, turn off the By-Pass left down Green Head lane (Map ref) towards Burnley
TRIAL
FIRST STOP Greenhead Manor
Greenhead Manor is where the Nutters lived. 'Our story begins at the end of the sixteenth century. In December 1595 Christopher Nutter and his sons, Robert and John, were travelling home through Pendle Forest when John Nutter suddenly felt ill. He told his father that he thought he had been bewitched by 'Chattox'.
'Chattox', named because she 'chattered with her teeth, was an old woman of about seventy, whose real name was Anne Whittle. She lived with her daughter, called Anne Redfearn, and her son-in-law Thomas Redfearn, on land adjacent to Greenhead, which we shall visit in Stage 4. Young Anne was said to have 'spurned Robert's advances' at about the same time.
A few hundred yards down Greenhead Lane, on your right you come to the Greenhead Manor gatepost (2pt)
Park on the left side of road; go down road 50 yds to a door on right. This leads to the style at the bottom the Greenhead Manor Grounds - 5pts. (53"49'15.73N 2"15'38.39)
Not long afterwards, en route for Chester, John Nutter threatened to evict Redfearn on his return. He never did as he died on the way back. Shortly afterwards his father, Christopher Nutter, took to his bed and also died, convinced that he had been bewitched.
17 years later (!) Anne Redfearne is charged with the death of them both. She is acquitted of the first but found guilty of the other the next day St Mary Newchurch account. More from Fence Methodist
Find out more about
Carre Hall & Gawthorpe Hall, and the Nutters
Lets find where the first 'court action' took place..Stage 2..