How old Newcastle was the location for England's biggest trial and mass execution of witches
by David Morton · ChronicleLiveEngland’s largest, deadliest and most corrupt witch trial took place in the North East in 1650.
A grim episode in our region’s history saw Newcastle’s Puritan corporation bring in an infamous witch finder, with the end result that 16 accused witches were hanged on a triangular scaffold on the Town Moor. A new, gripping work of historical fiction recalls what happened 375 years ago.
The brutality unfolded in the chaotic aftermath of the English Civil War. In 1649, surrounded by its great walls and under a constant pall of coal smoke, the town of Newcastle was breathing a collective sigh of relief that the Scottish Army which had occupied it since 1644 was gone.
But sweeping through the town - and across the country at large - was a witch craze, sparked by widespread paranoia and suspicion. Across Northumberland and Durham, from Tweed to Tees, hundreds of people, mostly women, were subject to the witch accusation between 1649 and 1650. In Newcastle, the corporation called on the services of a Scottish witch finder.
An account from 1655 by Ralph Gardiner noted: “Thirty women were brought into the town hall and stript [sic], and then openly had pins thrust into their bodies.” If the unfortunate women did not bleed, it meant they were witches. Almost certainly using a retractable pin, ‘the witchpricker’ - who was paid 20 shillings for each one he picked out - identified 28 witches.
Locked up in the old Newgate Prison (where the Gate leisure complex stands today) and the Castle Keep, they awaited their fate - although half were freed, including one who was deemed “too pretty” to be a witch.
However, on August 21, 1650, 16 of them would be publicly executed on gallows erected on Newcastle’s Town Moor. It was the largest recorded mass execution for witchcraft in English history. The bodies are thought to be buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery of St Andrew’s Church in Newgate Street.
Now, Northumberland author A D Bergin’s new thriller, The Wicked Of The Earth, reveals the depth of greed and corruption which fuelled the killings. He says: “What happened in Newcastle dwarfs the more famous cases of Pendle or in East Anglia, yet remains largely unknown.
“This is Britain’s biggest witch trial, one in which the victims come from many of the leading merchant families, and where other Newcastle women organised a mass, all-female campaign to free them. Theirs is a story which deserves to be far better known.”
Bergin, together with other fiction authors, historians and heritage professionals, is working towards the 375th anniversary of the Newcastle executions to establish a permanent memorial to all of the victims.
“I hope that the release of the book helps to raise awareness of the terrible injustices which took place all across the North East,” he says. “Even today we can take great pride in the defiance shown by the accused and the courage of the women who worked so hard to save them.”
A D Bergin was born in Northumberland and raised on Tyneside. He graduated from Cambridge University with a first class degree in History. He has worked as an archaeologist, historian, researcher, postman, roofer, builder and barman.
The Wicked Of The Earth, his first published work of fiction, has already gained plenty of critical acclaim. “Fans of historical fiction will relish this,” writes S S MacLean, author of the Seeker series. “Excellent…thrilling and tense historical crime,” says Trevor Wood, author of The Silent Killer. Chris Lloyd, author of Banquet of Beggars, meanwhile, writes: “Superb and powerful, seething with menace, a stunning debut.”
- The Wicked Of The Earth by A D Bergin, published by Northodox Press, is available in paperback, audio book and kindle versions online, and in all good local bookshops.
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