Introduction

The parish church of St Margaret in the village of Wolstanton in Staffordshire would seem, on the face of it, to have no special claims to prominence. It is a local landmark, certainly, sitting as it does on top of a hill that ensures that its crooked spire can be seen from miles around rising up out of a dense canopy of churchyard trees.

Even allowing for the fact that the base of the present tower dates back to the 13th century and the church itself is really rather pretty – surely nothing contained in the six and a half acre site would warrant more than a few paragraphs in a local guidebook.

Except that in its ancient graveyard, with memorial stones dating back to 1627 and an important burial site for generations before, lies a terrible secret. On the northern side of the nave, in the oldest section of the burial ground, lies a grave marked with a large flat slab of stone carrying a uniquely chilling inscription.

HERE
lieth the Body of
Sarah Smith Daughter of
Samuel and Martha Smith
of Bradwall Park who
departed this life Nover 29th 1763
and in the 21st Year of her Age

It was C––––s B––––w
that brought me to my end
Dear Parents mourn not for me
For God will stand my friend
With half a Pint of Poyson
He came to visit me
Write this on my Grave
That all that read it may see.

There can be few other gravestones in England inscribed with such a bold and uncompromising accusation of murder. And I found myself absolutely rooted to the spot in awe on my discovery of the gravestone during a leisurely stroll one afternoon.

Surely, I thought, I can’t be the first to have discovered this remarkable grave. And yet how had I not heard about it before? Having lived near tothe church for ten years and having attended weddings and Christmas Mass there over the years and having lifelong friends who had been born in the village – surely somebody would have mentioned it to me.

I checked with the local museum - news to them. Disappointed but insatiably curious, I scoured the Local History section of the local library and, sure enough, there were indeed references to the grave in published histories, old and modern, of the 800 year old Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme.

But that’s all I could find – just references. Local historians, it would seem, have been content to mark this remarkable memorial to Sarah Smith, if at all, by merely transcribing the cold chiselled words themselves.

Would there be, perhaps, a contemporaneous account in an old newspaper of the events arising from Sarah’s uncompromising deathbed accusation? Sadly, the earliest Staffordshire newspaper – the Staffordshire Advertiser – only began publishing in 1795. Clearly, the Parish Registers would be the best, if not indeed the only hope of satisfying my curiosity about the events that led to Sarah’s death.

And, sure enough, the Wolstanton Parish Baptismal, Marriage and Burial Registers – dating from 1628 (see pic) – contain just enough telling facts to allow me to begin putting some flesh onto the bones, as it were, of this 250 year old murder mystery – while raising many more questions besides.

Copyright 2006 Jeremy Crick