Witches, ghosts, and dolls: A Halloween Special

00:00:00: [Helen] We are Chelmsford, the birthplace of broadcasting.

00:00:03: [Rachel] We're the city that started all the titans of transmission.

00:00:06: [Helen] The precursors to podcasts.

00:00:08: [Helen] And whilst we're at it, the home of the best museum in the world.

00:00:12: [Rachel] But that's not all.

00:00:13: [Rachel] Chelmsford is home to histories aplenty.

00:00:15: [Rachel] We were once the capital of the UK, don't you know?

00:00:17: [Rachel] Well, sort of.

00:00:19: [Rachel] And it's the people past and present who make us.

00:00:22: [Helen] So hear from them yourself as we tune in to stories past and present in the Chelmsford Broadcast.

00:00:28: [Rachel] Brought to you by the Museum of Chelmsford.

00:00:47: [Helen] Rachel, it's autumn, aka spooky season.

00:00:52: [Helen] How do you feel about that?

00:00:53: [Helen] Happy to get out some cosy knitwear and snuggle up with a good ghost story.

00:00:57: [Rachel] Oh, absolutely, I love a good ghost story.

00:01:00: [Rachel] Paranormal induced goosebumps as well, so chillier mornings.

00:01:04: [Helen] So you're a believer then?

00:01:06: [Rachel] I don't think we could say that just yet, but my story today may change my mind.

00:01:12: [Helen] Interesting.

00:01:13: [Helen] I lived and worked in St Osyth, where there are lots of ghost stories, but also an important location for some of the first and largest witch trials in England.

00:01:22: [Helen] Many would want to know more about the history of the witch trials after hearing the ghost stories.

00:01:26: [Helen] So I don't mind them, as long as we dig deeper and keep questioning.

00:01:30: [Rachel] Wow, you have dug a lot deeper, haven't you, Helen?

00:01:32: [Helen] Yes, I went

00:01:33: [Helen] down that rabbit hole and ended up writing a book and a novel about 1582 St Osyth's witch trials.

00:01:39: [Helen] Those sad and dramatic events culminated right here in Chelmsford.

00:01:43: [Rachel] Really?

00:01:43: [Rachel] But we're about 40 miles away from St Osyth.

00:01:45: [Helen] Yeah, well, at the time, the court would travel from county to county and set up in towns to make judgments on criminal cases.

00:01:53: [Rachel] So the judge and decision makers come to our Shire Hall in Chelmsford.

00:01:57: [Helen] Absolutely.

00:01:58: [Helen] The building was different then.

00:01:59: [Helen] It had open sides so everyone could see the proceedings.

00:02:02: [Helen] The women were

00:02:03: [Helen] from St Osyth were brought from Colchester Castle where they'd been held in the prison and tried for the crime of witchcraft.

00:02:09: [Rachel] So it was illegal to be a witch.

00:02:11: [Helen] Yep, an Act of Parliament had made witchcraft a crime in 1562.

00:02:16: [Helen] The crime was to use witchcraft to cause harm to neighbours and their property.

00:02:20: [Helen] Two women from St Osyth were found guilty and hanged, probably in the square outside Shire Hall.

00:02:26: [Rachel] Well, Helen, this is all very fascinating.

00:02:28: [Rachel] I can see why you're so interested in this.

00:02:31: [Rachel] But today we're going to hear from some more fascinating people about spooky subjects from witches to ghosts and the paranormal.

00:02:38: [Helen] Starting with Claire, our curator, who'll be telling us about some of the creepy and spooky objects in our collections and what makes them creepy.

00:02:48: [Claire] Hi, my name's Claire and welcome to this episode of Curator's Corner.

00:02:53: [Claire] For our October episode I thought I'd continue with the spooky theme and have a look at some of the objects in the museum's collections that are seen as creepy, perhaps even frightening to some of us.

00:03:03: [Claire] There are so many different types of objects in museum collections, artefacts that are beautiful, fascinating and unusual, but some are also quite scary.

00:03:13: [Claire] So let's take a look at a few different objects in our collections at the Museum of Chelmsford that some of our visitors

00:03:18: [Claire] and sometimes also our staff might find a bit scary.

00:03:24: [Claire] I personally think there's something creepy about objects with eyes.

00:03:29: [Claire] So you might not be surprised to hear that taxidermy is first on my list to talk about.

00:03:34: [Claire] Taxidermy is definitely a bit like Marmite and for some of our visitors our taxidermy brown bear known as Boris is one of our most popular artefacts.

00:03:43: [Claire] But for many people seeing taxidermy on display is not for them.

00:03:48: [Claire] If you've visited the museum in the past, you may remember our room full of taxidermy downstairs.

00:03:53: [Claire] Much of this display was collected by Dr Salter, avid game hunter, and you might remember hearing all about him in episode 4 with Sarah's chat about Boris the bear.

00:04:02: [Claire] As Sarah said, at a time when we are more concerned about the survival of species and their natural environment, the destruction on the scale of Victorian hunters seems hard to fathom, and this might well be one of the reasons why we might find taxidermy just a little bit creepy.

00:04:18: [Claire] They look lifelike but are frozen in stillness, which is an unsettling contrast between life and death and perhaps confronting to our fears surrounding mortality and death.

00:04:27: [Claire] Displaying cases full of taxidermy is not as popular as it once was, but we still have a vast collection safely kept in our museum store and it's an interesting record of past collecting.

00:04:38: [Claire] It can feel quite strange in this area of the store

00:04:41: [Claire] And when we do our off-site store tours for the members of the public, certainly it's one of the most interested and unusual spaces that people want to look at.

00:04:49: [Claire] Because you've got beady-eyed birds artfully arranged in glass cases, as well as a number of larger, four-legged and more terrifying specimens.

00:04:57: [Claire] And at times it really can feel like they're watching you.

00:05:00: [Claire] One particular instance comes to mind for me.

00:05:03: [Claire] A wildcat in our store, affectionately named Doris by some of the curatorial team, certainly has quite startling eyes.

00:05:11: [Claire] The wild cat's eyes and the way she's been positioned by the taxidermist makes you think you wouldn't want to meet her on a dark night.

00:05:18: [Claire] But yet she's also been given a name like Boris.

00:05:20: [Claire] So as well as taxidermy crossing the two sides between life and death, there's also the affectionate side we might associate with them, giving them names as we would do with our pets.

00:05:30: [Claire] And then on the other side, as an animal lover, we also find their creation quite disturbing.

00:05:35: [Claire] Some taxidermy definitely looks more soft and cuddly.

00:05:38: [Claire] Take the fox in our wildlife case upstairs at the museum, all curled up as if it's just settled down or woken up from a good nap.

00:05:46: [Claire] In contrast, the pigeon just above it with stark eyes and beak open looks a lot less serene.

00:05:53: [Claire] Or maybe I'm just applying my preconceived ideas that birds can be unpredictable or ominous.

00:05:59: [Claire] I can see both sides but when the lights have been turned off in the store around the taxidermy it can definitely feel a bit creepy, especially with all those eyes.

00:06:08: [Claire] Over the years I've seen quite a few dolls and doll displays in museum collections and in the same way as taxidermy these can be quite creepy.

00:06:16: [Claire] As if they're suddenly going to come alive, sometimes their eyes are just looking right at you.

00:06:22: [Claire] They occupy that space between obviously not real but disturbingly person-like.

00:06:27: [Claire] There's A psychological theory that dolls can give off an uncanny valley effect.

00:06:33: [Claire] That by appearing almost human, they give uncanny or eerie feelings to viewers.

00:06:39: [Claire] The uncanny effect being a hypothesized psychological connection between the object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response the object generates.

00:06:49: [Claire] Soft toys, a toy rabbit or teddy bear, gives us feelings of nostalgia and warmth because they're less human-like, so we can feasibly separate this from our fears.

00:06:58: [Claire] Older dolls are different, especially some of those from the 1800s that were made with wax heads.

00:07:04: [Claire] Over time, the outer layers of their heads and the inner paper mache's skull has shrunk at different rates, almost like a natural ageing process, causing their face to crack and craze and create a scary, wild facial expression.

00:07:16: [Claire] The way in which these dolls have naturally aged, it's not surprising they're deemed to be a bit creepy, or that their wild expression has led to the nickname Mad Alice.

00:07:28: [Claire] We have one of these dolls in our collections, currently on display in our costume gallery, placed in a Victorian dolls pram alongside a display of children's clothing.

00:07:38: [Claire] A wax doll named Isabel Campen.

00:07:41: [Claire] Isabel was an 11th birthday present for Caroline Campen of Pleshy in 1851, with homemade clothes made by Miss Young of Lodge Farm in Pleshy.

00:07:51: [Claire] Whilst her cracked face, dark black eyes and strange smile that fits on us as we look at her today may seem creepy, she was donated to the museum by Caroline's granddaughter over 130 years later.

00:08:04: [Claire] So she was most probably a treasured object and family heirloom

00:08:08: [Claire] loved by Caroline herself as she received her as a birthday gift.

00:08:14: [Claire] When I think of other museum objects with creepy eyes, eyes that are looking and following us around, portraits also come to mind.

00:08:22: [Claire] The Mona Lisa effect of the sitter watching you as you walk across a room.

00:08:27: [Claire] Of course, if you visited the museum and walked downstairs through the Victorian Hall, you might have been caught by surprise by the talking portrait of Fred Wells.

00:08:35: [Claire] He's not scary as such.

00:08:37: [Claire] as he starts to talk to you, he might make you jump unexpectedly.

00:08:42: [Claire] Again, some of the portraits can make you feel uneasy and can have that uncanny valley effect.

00:08:48: [Claire] As you walk up the stairs in the Victorian Hall, there are a number of portraits on display.

00:08:53: [Claire] I'm not sure any of the eyes of these really follow you.

00:08:55: [Claire] Most of them are looking somewhere into the distance, but some of those eyes will certainly have seen some interesting events and stories.

00:09:03: [Claire] Looking at Judge Tindal's portrait near the staircase, his eyes seem to look down from the canvas rather than follow you around the room.

00:09:09: [Claire] Tindal is best known for defending Queen Caroline of Brunswick in King George IV's adultery case against her.

00:09:16: [Claire] After his appointment to the bench in 1829, he helped reform criminal law.

00:09:21: [Claire] He introduced the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity and the defence of provocation in murder trials, which can reduce a murder trial to manslaughter.

00:09:31: [Claire] Both these defences are still in use today.

00:09:34: [Claire] Another portrait at the top of the stairs is Thomas Clarkson Neale.

00:09:39: [Claire] He was the first governor of the new jail built on Springfield Hill in the 1820s and it's still the site of Chelmsford prison today.

00:09:47: [Claire] Thomas Neale would have witnessed many events in his position if only those eyes could talk.

00:09:55: [Claire] We featured a piece on Thomas Neale in episode one, and as he rose from the role of prison keeper to governor, he would have conducted A variety of tasks from maintaining the well-being and safety of prisoners to upholding law and order.

00:10:07: [Claire] If you've not had a chance to listen to episode one, it's still available to hear, and you can find out more about some of the less pleasant tasks Thomas Meale had.

00:10:15: [Claire] Not Thomas Meale, he's Thomas Neale!

00:10:17: [Claire] If you've not had a chance to listen to episode one, it's still available to hear and find out some more about the less pleasant task Thomas Neale had to oversee.

00:10:26: [Claire] I guess my final point I want to say is that we should be grateful that many museums, including the Museum of Chelmsford, now use headless mannequins.

00:10:34: [Claire] At least it no longer looks like a costume display could come to life.

00:10:40: [Claire] And now I'm going to hand over to Rachel and Helen for Rachel's story time.

00:10:49: [Rachel] Welcome back to Rachel's Stories, where we find ourselves in my favourite time of the year, autumn, with the change of the leaves and most importantly, my birthday.

00:10:58: [Helen] Oh, happy birthday, Rachel.

00:10:59: [Rachel] Thank you, Helen.

00:11:00: [Rachel] As you can hear, Helen has joined me today for our next spooky story.

00:11:04: [Rachel] I think there's no better way to celebrate the coming of the autumn and Halloween than a great ghost story.

00:11:09: [Helen] Absolutely.

00:11:10: [Rachel] So today we're heading back to the Hive Cafe.

00:11:14: [Rachel] It seems our ghost did like a good brunch

00:11:16: [Helen] Me too.

00:11:16: [Rachel] Yes.

00:11:17: [Rachel] But I've got to say, they do have good taste, I've got to say.

00:11:19: [Helen] I've tried the eggs, Benedict.

00:11:22: [Rachel] So listeners as you may remember, back on episode 3, we heard the spooky and sometimes unsettling eyewitness accounts of the hive head chef Andy.

00:11:30: [Rachel] But this time I'll be telling the story of Sandra, who gave an interview to me and two ghost stories that happened within the past year.

00:11:38: [Rachel] There's a very recent, so we're not talking decades ago.

00:11:41: [Helen] So you poured yourself a cup of coffee and had a chat with Sandra.

00:11:44: [Helen] What did she have to say?

00:11:45: [Rachel] Oh, well, to begin, she started her day, opened up the kitchen around 6:00 in the morning to start the breakfast service.

00:11:52: [Rachel] She dropped her bag in the office as usual, and she could hear footsteps directly above.

00:11:57: [Helen] Oh, what's above the office?

00:11:59: [Helen] It's the Our Chelmsford room.

00:12:00: [Rachel] Yes, it's the Our Chelmsford room, which was previously a bedroom in the Wells time.

00:12:05: [Helen] Right.

00:12:05: [Rachel] And she could hear these footsteps walking along the Victorian Hall.

00:12:09: [Rachel] So she thought this might be our facilities manager, who often has to work early.

00:12:13: [Helen] He's the only other person in there early.

00:12:14: [Helen] I'm not in there early.

00:12:17: [Rachel] But then she heard the museum alarm sensors go off.

00:12:20: [Rachel] When she peered through the glass door, there were no lights on.

00:12:24: [Rachel] So on this occasion, Helen, the museum was completely empty.

00:12:29: [Helen] What was the noise?

00:12:30: [Rachel] Exactly.

00:12:31: [Rachel] So what did Sandra hear?

00:12:32: [Rachel] Who was upstairs in the empty museum?

00:12:34: [Rachel] So when our facilities manager did come into the museum to open up, the alarm sensor had gone off in the Our Chelmsford room upstairs.

00:12:41: [Helen] Wow.

00:12:43: [Helen] So no one was there, but the alarms had been set.

00:12:45: [Rachel] Yes, we've got the ghostly footsteps.

00:12:48: [Rachel] Have you heard any ghostly footsteps around the museum?

00:12:50: [Helen] No, thankfully I don't work at night.

00:12:52: [Helen] I'm not sure I'd want to.

00:12:54: [Helen] I don't blame you.

00:12:56: [Rachel] So just a couple of weeks later, Sandra again experienced more activity.

00:13:00: [Rachel] However, this time in a form of a ghostly voice.

00:13:04: [Helen] Oh, that's giving me the chills.

00:13:06: [Rachel] So when I opened up the cafe in the morning, she walked into the second room of the Hive Cafe and heard a woman's voice say, “there there, child.”

00:13:16: [Helen] Oh my gosh, creepy children as well.

00:13:19: [Rachel] It's as if someone was comforting a crying child.

00:13:22: [Rachel] So she looked around the cafe, looked outside as well.

00:13:26: [Rachel] She was quite worried at this point.

00:13:28: [Rachel] She could see there's no one there.

00:13:30: [Rachel] No one at all.

00:13:30: [Rachel] It's really about 6:30 in the morning.

00:13:33: [Helen] Oh, I've got goosebumps.

00:13:34: [Rachel] Yeah, so what could it be?

00:13:35: [Rachel] Who was the mystery voice?

00:13:38: [Rachel] In this room was originally the dining room of the Wells family.

00:13:42: [Helen] Oh, they had lots of children, didn't they?

00:13:44: [Rachel] Just the eight children.

00:13:45: [Rachel] Oh, yes.

00:13:46: [Rachel] And this dining room could sit up to 15 people, but I think it would be quite unusual for the children to be dining with their parents.

00:13:53: [Rachel] They would have been upstairs in the nursery.

00:13:55: [Helen] True, yeah.

00:13:56: [Rachel] However, what intrigues me, what's above the Hive Cafe.

00:14:01: [Helen] We're in the old part of the building.

00:14:02: [Helen] What is directly above the cafe?

00:14:03: [Rachel] It would have been the day and the night nursery.

00:14:06: [Helen] That's where the children were.

00:14:08: [Rachel] So the night nursery and the day nursery.

00:14:11: [Rachel] Is now the Roman and the Stone Age galleries.

00:14:13: [Helen] Yeah.

00:14:14: [Rachel] Could this been the voice of one of the nursery maids that worked here?

00:14:17: [Rachel] There must have been plenty of them with all those eight children.

00:14:20: [Helen] I wish I had some.

00:14:23: [Rachel] Was this the soothing voice of Mary Ann Philpott, who was a nurse for the Wells family in the 1880s?

00:14:30: [Rachel] Or Emily Hayton, who was a nursery maid in the 1871 census?

00:14:34: [Rachel] Or even could it be the first wife of Fred Wells, Clara, who unfortunately died here at Oakland's age 45?

00:14:41: [Helen] Oh my gosh, that's, yeah, it could be any of them.

00:14:44: [Helen] That is creepy.

00:14:45: [Rachel] Yeah, so listeners, if you have any ghost stories that you've heard,

00:14:50: [Rachel] please let us know.

00:14:51: [Helen] Or don't because I'm already freaked out enough.

00:14:55: [Rachel] Oh, so many questions, so little answers, Helen.

00:14:59: [Rachel] And that's the story of Sandra's experience.

00:15:01: [Rachel] I'd like to thank Sandra for sharing her ghostly experience.

00:15:04: [Rachel] Yeah, thank you.

00:15:05: [Rachel] I won't sleep tonight.

00:15:06: [Rachel] Yeah, thank you.

00:15:08: [Rachel] And next up is Chelmsfordian of the month.

00:15:10: [Rachel] And my question is, if you can go for dinner with your Chelmsfordian anywhere in town, where would you go?

00:15:20: [Maxine] This tea smells really nice.

00:15:23: [Maxine] Are they an appropriate temperature or am I going to burn everything?

00:15:27: [Emma] It's quite hot, but it's not burning.

00:15:30: [Emma] It feels quite appropriate to be drinking herbal tea while talking about witches, though.

00:15:34: [Maxine] No, I'm a wimp, sorry.

00:15:37: [Emma] I'm having the tiniest sip I can say that.

00:15:41: [Maxine] Thanks, Rachel.

00:15:42: [Maxine] It's Maxine here, but you're not going to hear from me today.

00:15:45: [Maxine] I've got a special guest.

00:15:46: [Maxine] I've got Emma, founder and managing director from the Essex Witch Museum here with me.

00:15:51: [Maxine] And Emma is going to tell us all about their Chelmsfordian of the month.

00:15:55: [Maxine] Over to you, Emma.

00:15:56: [Emma] Hi, thanks for having me.

00:15:58: [Emma] So, my Chelmsfordian of the month is Elizabeth Lowe’s.

00:16:01: [Emma] She was the first person in England to be executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1562.

00:16:07: [Maxine] 1562?

00:16:08: [Emma] Yes.

00:16:09: [Maxine] So what's their story?

00:16:11: [Emma] She gets forgotten A lot.

00:16:12: [Emma] So the first person that people often think about is Agnes Waterhouse, who was executed in 1566, but Elizabeth was executed one year earlier than her in 1565.

00:16:23: [Emma] It's a bit of a dubious honour to be the first person executed under the Witchcraft Act, but it's something that gets debated A lot.

00:16:29: [Emma] So she was tried in 1564 and she was tried for the murder of three people by witchcraft and she was found guilty on all three counts, but she pled pregnancy.

00:16:40: [Emma] and the solution for that was that she was imprisoned for eight months and then later they found, a jury of matrons found that she wasn't pregnant and then she was heard again at the Assizes in Chelmsford and she was hanged in 1565.

00:16:55: [Maxine] Were there many women that you have found that have claimed pregnancy?

00:16:59: [Emma] There were quite a few, not just in the witchcraft trials but it was quite a

00:17:04: [Emma] a common thing to claim, particularly if you could prove it.

00:17:08: [Emma] And some people did become pregnant while they were in prison, but it was something that women would use to try and stay their execution to prove that they still had value in society, I suppose.

00:17:20: [Emma] What we don't know is whether she was pregnant, whether she lost the baby, whether she gave birth in prison, whether she was never pregnant at all, and it was just a ruse to try and stay her execution.

00:17:33: [Emma] but we know she was imprisoned and later executed.

00:17:36: [Emma] So she's not as simple in the history books as she was tried and she was executed.

00:17:42: [Emma] She was tried and then imprisoned and later executed.

00:17:46: [Maxine] That's not simple at all.

00:17:47: [Emma] No.

00:17:48: [Maxine] What else do we know about Elizabeth?

00:17:50: [Emma] So we know she was around 40 when she was executed.

00:17:55: [Emma] She had five daughters.

00:17:56: [Emma] Her and her husband were not well liked.

00:18:00: [Emma] He was accused of theft quite often.

00:18:03: [Emma] There was a common rumour around Great Waltham that she was a witch.

00:18:08: [Emma] She claimed that her mother was a witch and was a stronger, more powerful witch than she was.

00:18:13: [Emma] We know a lot about her, so the trials often we don't know much about the people that were tried because the assized court records just have their name, their marital status, sometimes a job title and a very brief description of why they're indicted.

00:18:27: [Emma] We don't know much about

00:18:28: [Emma] the majority of people, whereas Elizabeth was heard before the, I'm going to say this wrong because I always do, ecclesiastical courts by the Archdeacon.

00:18:39: [Maxine] Oh, that's a good word.

00:18:40: [Emma] It's a hard one to say and I always say it, but it's the church court, basically.

00:18:45: [Emma] So in 1564, she was heard by the Archdeacon of Essex.

00:18:49: [Emma] There were more things in that book that didn't make it through to the assize trial.

00:18:53: [Emma] And that gives us so much information about not just Elizabeth and her life, but also

00:18:58: [Emma] life in Essex at the time and the fears, rumours and accusations and how that then snowballed into the witch trials that then took over England and a lot of Europe.

00:19:13: [Maxine] I think when you were talking about Elizabeth, one thing that stood out to me was her age.

00:19:17: [Maxine] I had

00:19:20: [Maxine] probably wrongly assumed that they were all going to be young women.

00:19:24: [Maxine] Is there a real mix of ages or is it mostly?

00:19:26: [Emma] There's quite a mix.

00:19:28: [Emma] The range of ages we found through the witch trials is very, very broad.

00:19:33: [Emma] It goes from...

00:19:34: [Emma] from 14 up to sort of 80.

00:19:37: [Emma] It's interesting that you assumed young women, because a lot of people assume older women.

00:19:38: [Maxine] commercial pointy hat, big nose?

00:19:43: [Emma] Exactly.

00:19:43: [Emma] It's the very stereotypical of the old woman who lives on the edge of the woods and is a herbalist or a cunning folk healer or is a midwife.

00:19:54: [Emma] And Elizabeth was with none of those.

00:19:56: [Emma] She worked as a spinster.

00:19:57: [Emma] So she was turning raw wool into yarn.

00:20:02: [Emma] which was a very common profession in Essex at the time.

00:20:05: [Emma] And her husband was a husbandman, so a farmer.

00:20:09: [Emma] They were just very ordinary kind of working class people.

00:20:14: [Emma] I think it's interesting because the more we've gone into the research of the people who were executed and accused and tried during the witch trials, there's no one thing connecting them.

00:20:26: [Emma] They weren't all women.

00:20:28: [Emma] They weren't all old, they weren't all midwives, they weren't all this, they're just people.

00:20:34: [Emma] And the only common thread that I can see is that they weren't liked.

00:20:39: [Maxine] Like you said, there were rumours and that snowballed heavily.

00:20:43: [Emma] Oh yeah.

00:20:43: [Emma] So there was things like with Philipa Gill, who she worked alongside, Elizabeth, what we know from the ecclesiastical court records, went to their boss, who was John Barnard's wife, and said that

00:20:56: [Emma] Philippa doesn't want to spin anymore.

00:20:58: [Emma] She doesn't want any more work.

00:21:00: [Emma] Don't worry about her.

00:21:00: [Emma] And of course, Philippa found out about this and went to Elizabeth and said, why have you said this?

00:21:06: [Emma] That's a lie.

00:21:08: [Emma] And they had an argument.

00:21:09: [Emma] And during the argument, Philippa said, if it be as folks say, thou art a witch.

00:21:14: [Emma] To which Elizabeth replied, if I be a witch, the devil thee twitch.

00:21:19: [Emma] And it said that Philippa immediately fell down with, it's recorded as a great quivering and quakering.

00:21:25: [Emma] So whether that was tremors or more like a seizure kind of thing, we don't know.

00:21:30: [Emma] But it said that for the two weeks following that, she continued to that condition and people thought she would die.

00:21:37: [Maxine] Oh my goodness, okay.

00:21:37: [Emma] So her neighbours called for the local priest and the priest sent for Elizabeth and said to her, if Philippa doesn't get better,

00:21:45: [Emma] you will be burnt.

00:21:46: [Maxine] Wow, okay, that was it.

00:21:47: [Emma] That was it.

00:21:48: [Emma] And Philippa immediately recovered.

00:21:50: [Maxine] Oh, so gosh, that's so dangerous.

00:21:53: [Maxine] So you've really got to watch what you say in that time.

00:21:56: [Emma] Really, really.

00:21:57: [Emma] And I think that story is so powerful because it shows both sides of it.

00:22:01: [Emma] You can see it as the Elizabeth was a witch and she cursed her and you can see it as, well, that's proof.

00:22:06: [Emma] That's what that is.

00:22:07: [Emma] Or you can see it as the power of suggestion.

00:22:10: [Emma] that Philippa so strongly believed that Elizabeth was a witch that those words had a placebo effect on her body that sent her into being so unwell.

00:22:21: [Emma] When the priest then said to Elizabeth to take this curse off, Philippa believed it so strongly that she recovered from this power of suggestion.

00:22:29: [Emma] So I find it really interesting from both sides of that kind of looking at humanity's view, how that could have happened.

00:22:35: [Maxine] But neither way would go on to save her.

00:22:38: [Emma] No, and that wasn't actually one of the things that she was indicted for at trial.

00:22:44: [Emma] So the story with Philippa never made it to trial.

00:22:48: [Emma] What Elizabeth was indicted for at trial was the murder of a father and a son and another young boy for murder by witchcraft.

00:22:57: [Emma] And the thing that's interesting about that is that

00:23:01: [Emma] In the ecclesiastical records, the archdeacon records, we can see that actually Elizabeth recommended the mother of one of the boys to go to a local cunning woman for advice on how to heal the child.

00:23:13: [Emma] So if she had been the one to curse the child and make him unwell, why would she recommend going to a cunning woman?

00:23:21: [Emma] But it also disputes the theory that Elizabeth herself was a cunning woman because why would she turn the work away?

00:23:26: [Maxine] So Emma, where can we learn more about Elizabeth?

00:23:30: [Emma] So the Museum of Chelmsford has some information about the witch trials in Essex.

00:23:34: [Emma] There's a little board you can go and read a bit more about what happened in Chelmsford and a lovely video you can go watch.

00:23:42: [Emma] But if you want to learn more in-depth information about the witch trials or Elizabeth specifically, we have our next pop-up exhibition will be in Chelmsford.

00:23:52: [Emma] It's going to be during October half term, so the 26th of October to the 1st of November.

00:23:59: [Emma] and we'll be at the top of the high street and around the city centre.

00:24:02: [Emma] There's going to be a little, as I say, pop-up museum there with an exhibition.

00:24:07: [Emma] There'll be a walking trail with activities for kids and there's going to be some activities for adults in the evening as well.

00:24:14: [Maxine] And then just to wrap up, I want to ask you, why did you choose Elizabeth?

00:24:18: [Maxine] And then I have a question from Rachel's segment for you to answer at the end.

00:24:23: [Emma] Okay.

00:24:25: [Emma] I think I chose Elizabeth because

00:24:28: [Emma] As I say, she gets forgotten A lot.

00:24:30: [Emma] She gets overshadowed and she's the start of something bigger.

00:24:35: [Emma] And there's the aspect of we learn more about life in general from her records.

00:24:40: [Emma] But I think also I just love that she's not a perfect victim.

00:24:46: [Emma] People want this perfect victim narrative of she was clear cut, she was evil and she was executed and that's the end of it.

00:24:56: [Emma] And she's just

00:24:57: [Emma] not.

00:24:58: [Emma] There's something in her story that you can relate to from a lot of different walks of life.

00:25:04: [Emma] She's A relatable, flawed human and I love that.

00:25:10: [Maxine] So to finish with Rachel's question, so Rachel wanted to ask, if you could go for dinner with your Chelmsfordian anywhere in town, where would you go?

00:25:21: [Emma] I

00:25:22: [Emma] don't actually know if they serve food anymore but the garrison at the top of Chelmsford High Street, so the Saracen's Head building, would have been around at the time of Elizabeth where she was tried but I also used to work there and it was sort of the beginning of my history research was looking into the history of Saracen's Head and I just think it would be lovely to hear her opinion on how much the building has changed

00:25:51: [Emma] since her lifetime to where it is now and reminisce with her about how the floor plan has changed and the stories and all the gossip from back then and how that is different but also the same now.

00:26:05: [Maxine] And what on earth is everyone doing and staring at while they're having their lunch?

00:26:10: [Emma] Yeah, what are those little sort of colourful bricks everyone is looking at?

00:26:15: [Maxine] Emma, thank you so, much for coming in.

00:26:17: [Maxine] Thank you for talking to us about Elizabeth.

00:26:20: [Maxine] Where can people find out more about the Essex Witch Museum?

00:26:23: [Emma] So our website is essexwitchmuseum.co.uk and you can find us on social media at Essex Witch Museum.

00:26:30: [Maxine] Brilliant, thank you so much.

00:26:32: [Emma] Thank you.

00:26:32: [Maxine] And that's our Chelmsfordian of the month.

00:26:39: [Helen] Wow.

00:26:39: [Helen] So Claire's things got me thinking about all of the things in a museum with creepy eyes.

00:26:44: [Helen] I notice them everywhere now.

00:26:46: [Helen] What do you think about the tiger?

00:26:48: [Rachel] No, I love the tiger.

00:26:49: [Rachel] It reminds my little ginger cat at home.

00:26:52: [Rachel] But I do feel a bit sorry for it, isn't it?

00:26:53: [Rachel] It's only got one, got a head and a paw.

00:26:56: [Rachel] Yeah, the tiger, not my cats.

00:27:00: [Helen] I love to trick the school kids that come to the museum about the tiger.

00:27:03: [Helen] I always tell them that your front of house team have to leave out a saucer of milk for him because he comes alive at night.

00:27:10: [Helen] They are funny, aren't they, kids?

00:27:12: [Helen] They do keep us on their toes.

00:27:14: [Rachel] Yeah, they do say the funniest things.

00:27:16: [Helen] And they have started to call me Bruv, which is a bit weird.

00:27:21: [Helen] But one question I had from them recently was, were the women really witches?

00:27:28: [Rachel] Good question.

00:27:28: [Helen] It is.

00:27:30: [Helen] We're used to a world with many different beliefs, practices, rituals, and people who refer to themselves as witches or follow Wicca or a pagan way of life.

00:27:39: [Helen] Those accused of witchcraft in the early modern period, however, were not.

00:27:43: [Helen] They may have felt that they had the power to unwitch or lift a curse, but almost exclusively they would describe themselves as Christian.

00:27:51: [Helen] It can be hard to understand the role of spirituality in their life.

00:27:55: [Helen] Saints, the devil and spirits were almost tangible things that you might meet whilst out collecting firewood or getting water from the well.

00:28:03: [Rachel] That does sound creepy.

00:28:04: [Helen] Yeah, and interesting the devil could manipulate the air to take any form he wanted.

00:28:10: [Helen] So sometimes ghostly, sometimes animals, sometimes like a man.

00:28:16: [Helen] He would convince people to do his bidding.

00:28:19: [Rachel] Yeah, I suppose they had a lot of things in their life they couldn't understand or explain without the scientific knowledge that we have today.

00:28:24: [Helen] Exactly.

00:28:25: [Helen] Epidemics, crop failures, weather, all things which impacted their life they couldn't explain.

00:28:31: [Helen] The supernatural gave meaning.

00:28:33: [Rachel] So I'm pretty glad I live a lifetime of weather apps.

00:28:36: [Rachel] Sometimes just get it wrong still, I've got to say.

00:28:38: [Helen] Yeah, well, you need to know whether you need a brolly or a cardigan.

00:28:42: [Helen] But what's it looking like for the weekend?

00:28:44: [Rachel] Well, I'm hoping the sun will be

00:28:45: [Rachel] shining.

00:28:46: [Rachel] We'll have a busy time with the people visiting the museum and of course the beautiful park.

00:28:50: [Rachel] It's so good to have it looking green again after the long hot summer.

00:28:53: [Rachel] It was all parched and horrible, wasn't it?

00:28:55: [Helen] It was.

00:28:56: [Helen] It really is so green and lush now.

00:28:59: [Helen] Come and pay us a visit and while you're here, take a look at our membership options.

00:29:03: [Helen] If you have little ones who like the spooky season, join us for our family fun activities over the half term holidays for magical arts and crafts.

00:29:12: [Rachel] And don't forget, if you enjoyed listening to the Chelmsford Broadcast, make sure

00:29:15: [Rachel] write a review and spread the good word to anyone who listens.

00:29:18: [Rachel] Absolutely.

00:29:19: [Rachel] So check out our website and social media for exciting talks, tours and events that we have coming up.

00:29:24: [Helen] And tune in next month for a special remembrance episode of The Chelmsford Broadcast.

00:29:30: [Helen] Goodbye.

00:29:30: [Rachel] Bye.