Sally the Dunstable Witch

Sally the Dunstable Witch is the subject of an 81-verse poem written in 1875 by the local headmaster, A. P. Wire. It is a work of fiction, intended to shame the rector of the Priory Church in Dunstable, the Reverend Frederick Hose, into restoring the churchyard, which had fallen into a state of disrepair.^[1]

The church itself had also been in poor condition,^[1] deemed unsafe until its restoration by the architect George Somers Clarke from 1869 until 1873.^[2] But the Reverend Hose was reluctant to spend money on the restoration of its churchyard, so Wire created Sally to shame the rector into repairing it, by offering a humorous explanation for why it had become so dilapidated.^[1]

Poetic story

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Wire’s 1875 poem describes Sally as having lived about 600 years ago, in the early days of the Augustinian priory. As the poem begins, she is a typical elderly lady living alone with her cat, telling fortunes and offering love potions. But as she gets older things begin to change, after the black catThe numerous folk beliefs about black cats, and cats in general, are often contradictory. Superstitions surrounding black cats are almost certainly some of the most prevalent even today, along with the number thirteen and walking under a ladder. she gets for company teaches her about the black arts. Local residents, concerned about sickness and mysterious fires, eventually go to the prior accusing Sally of practising witchcraft.^[1]

Sally is sent to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to be burned alive.^[a]Witchcraft did not become a felony in England until the passage of Henry VIII’s short-lived Witchcraft Act 1542Series of Acts passed by the Parliaments of England and Scotland making witchcraft a secular offence punishable by death., although it had long been considered a crime by the Church, punishable in the ecclesiastical courts; but they had only limited powers to imprison, and could not impose fines or the death penalty.^[3] Tied to the stake, she curses those who have condemned her, and vows revenge. Her ghost subsequently terrorises the town of Dunstable until a palmer is called to exorcise it. The palmer succeeds in backing Sally’s ghost into a corner and capturing it in a bottle, which is then corked and buried in the priory churchyard, and warns that if the bottle is ever disturbed Sally will return more malevolent than before.^[1]

Over the years the exact burial place of the bottle is forgotten, and the fear of disturbing it results in the state of the churchyard becoming a local scandal.^[2]

Aftermath

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Following the poem’s publication the Priory Church Restoration fund held a two-day bazaar that raised more than the £1,000 needed to restore the churchyard.^[1]

But the Reverend Hose was not amused by Wire’s poem, and forced him to retire from his position as headmaster of the Ashton Elementary Church Schools, going on to falsely accuse him of stealing “sundry vases and scientific apparatus belonging to the school”.^[2]