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Lower Quinton Witchcraft Murder

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Miffy-Moo View Post
    Hi Graham,

    Sorry for the late reply, I've been on holiday

    Lots of people have black dogs and during my time in Lower Quinton (20+ years) I can't say that I ever encountered a strange/vicious one (thankfully). However, I walked up Meon Hill several times (mostly as a child or teenager) and have to say that there was a strange stillness about the place.

    Lower Quinton itself is a lovely place to live and I wish sometimes that I was living back there again (I had to relocate to Wiltshire due to a job). Maybe I will retire there eventually......
    Hi Miffy-Moo,

    Few years ago I stayed a couple of nights in a pub near Wells-Next-The-Sea in North Norfolk, and for whatever reason the conversation turned towards ghosties, ghoulies and things that - well, you know. One of the men I was yakking with began to go on a bit about black dogs and so forth - amazing how the talk goes after a few pints. But anyway, this character - a local - seemed entirely and totally convinced that black dogs (known locally as the Black Shuck) roamed the network of lanes in the vicinity and to see one meant - ooooh, nasty death. Good laugh and all that, but nothing on earth would have got me out of that pub on that night....I wanted to think that this bloke was taking the piss out of me, as an outsider or whatever, but I don't think he was. Scareee....

    Cheers,

    Graham
    We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

    Comment


    • #17
      Hi Graham,

      I too have heard of the tales of Black Shuck (I have a rather vast true crime / unexplained book collection).

      No doubt it has been mentioned previously that Charles Walton allegedly saw a black dog on Meon Hill and shortly after his sister died - I'm not sure how much (if any) truth is in that though.

      Comment


      • #18
        Hi All That's really interesting I've heard about superstitions about Black Cats but not Black Dogs. Black in general seems to have alot of superstitions attached to it

        I have two Black Dogs well Black and Tan actually but mainly Black lol

        Comment


        • #19
          The 'black-dog' supposedly means a death will occur involving the person who saw it...

          Comment


          • #20
            They do say that Black Shuck be the Hunting Hound of Odin brought to these shores by the Vikings all them years ago...they do say that on nights of no moon a man can see 'im loping along the cliffs near Cromer, with 'is one burning eye and fire spouting from 'is nostrils...they do say this, they do...they do say that the marks of 'is claws can be seen on the door of the church at Bungay...tis said that half the population of East Anglia are sloshed most of the time...

            I've got a black cat called Joolz - would he qualify?

            Graham
            We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

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            • #21
              I had a v.handsome pure black cat called "Eddie" but unfortunately he had to be put to sleep in July.

              There was certainly nothing "lucky" about him:

              He was run over as a kitten (broke his ankle); had lower urinary tract disease which resulted in a special diet for the rest of his life; he got lost for 7 weeks when we moved house; he contracted FIV from his "lost" period"; had a tumour on his leg and eventually a brain tumour / blindness polished him off ......

              My father in law had a black dog called "Robbie" and he was v.soppy, nothing evil or scary about him at all.

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              • #22
                Hiya Miffy-Moo,

                Poor old Eddie. He had a hard start to life, from the sound of it. My cat Joolz is also 100% pure black, not a white hair on him, but he's a spoiled, pampered little thing.

                As an aside, Conan Doyle's 'The Hound Of The Baskervilles' was based on East Anglian legend transposed to Dartmoor, largely because Conan Doyle felt that Dartmoor was a much more distant and romantic place that Norfolk and Suffolk. If you Google 'black dogs' or 'Black Shuck', you'll get many leads to this fascinating legend.

                Getting back to Meon Hill for a moment, the famous Fabian of the Yard investigated the Walton Murder, and even after his retirement kept going back there. Chances are he knew who did it...

                Cheers,

                Graham
                We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                Comment


                • #23
                  Graham,

                  I'm sure that it must have been Potter that did it and Fabian must have thought that too.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Miffy-Moo View Post
                    Graham,

                    I'm sure that it must have been Potter that did it and Fabian must have thought that too.
                    Hi Miffy-Moo,

                    I think so too, but in those days without rock-solid evidence, a 'gentleman copper' like Fabian wouldn't have publicly expressed an opinion.

                    Graham
                    We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Jtr

                      Hi Graham,

                      What are your views on JTR then?

                      Personally I think he was a complete unknown and his identity will have gone with him to the grave. Judging from most serial killers' MO they usually "peak" and are then captured or die, which I think is the case here.

                      However, the Maybrick diary is intriguing.........

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Hi im researching this as much as possible at mo has im related to charles walton and wanting to know what happened.If anyone could help me illl be very gratful. i cant find out is his wife name if anyone can help.Also general knowledge on this case.facts really has all i read is hearsay.When did his headstone go missing?

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Hi Melamber,

                          If you Google 'Lower Quinton Murder' you'll find a load of sites about it. Some of them are a bit loony, going on about witchcraft and so forth, but I'm sure you'll find the information you're looking for.

                          Good luck,

                          Graham
                          We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            I think Fabian was convinced Potter was the killer but couldnt prove it.Have actually been to Lower Quinton and even now its hardly a very hospitable place and best not to mention the Walton murder,people even now just turn their backs and refuse to say a word

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Sorry I’m a bit late contributing to this post but I’ve only just joined the site – and a very interesting site it looks as well.
                              Back in the early 1980s my brother was in the army and stationed at long Marston army camp two or three miles from the village of lower Quinton (the camp is long gone and is now home to the annual bulldog run biker’s event).
                              Nearer the village itself was a small estate that housed the married/family men from the base (of which my brother was one).Meon hill directly overlooked this estate.
                              I lived in Birmingham at the time and during the three years he was stationed there I regularly used to go and stay at his house for a weekend for a break from the city and to have a drink with him and his army pals.
                              I had never heard anything before about the Charles Walton case until my brother told me about it one time when I was there. I thought then it was just a thing known locally. It wasn’t until years later when I read about it in certain books -and then later on the internet- that I realised how famous a case it was.
                              Some of the army lads used to go jogging over Meon Hill and told me they had on occasion actually seen a lone black dog on there. Some told me of other odd experiences they had had in that vicinity. Your guess is as good as mine whether they were actually telling the truth, but would they all be lying???
                              Like some of you mentioned, the locals could be a funny lot. I remember one evening having a chat with one local in the village pub. He was old enough to have been around when the murder happened. We were getting on great and buying each other drinks, but when I later on brought the subject of the murder up (I didn’t know at the time that the locals were still so touchy about it. it happened years before so what’s the problem?), he just turned funny, walked away, and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.
                              I found the whole area around there had a strange otherworldly atmosphere about it a lot of the time. There was certainly a lot of paranormal activity going on. This wasn’t just imagined by me, but confirmed to me by a lot of other people’s experiences as well.
                              My brother’s army house was haunted (as were a lot of other houses on the estate I was to later find out).my brother didn’t tell me and the family about that until he had moved out of there. He didn’t want to scare us from going to stay there occasionally.
                              Sometimes at night a baby could be heard crying and/or screaming. My brother and his wife did have three young children at the time but it wasn’t found to be any of them. I slept in the small box room one time and plainly heard a baby breathing (as asleep) in the corner of the room. It was odd, but I put it down that I could hear one of my brother’s children asleep in the other bedroom through the wall.
                              Sometimes when my brother was away on manoeuvres his wife would put the children to bed and would be watching television downstairs. She said would hear a baby crying from upstairs and/or people running across the landing and up and down the stairs. When it happened once too often, and it was certain it wasn’t her own children doing it, she did get very spooked! She told my brother about it but he wouldn’t believe it at first. However, He was looking after the children one night while his wife was at bingo, and the same experience happened with him. There were other occasions when disturbing things happened as well.
                              Eventually it all got so unsettling they asked for a move. it was later found out that a baby had died there (drowned in the bath) but what all the rest of it was about was never found out. Another house on the estate had such bad phenomena
                              Going on a priest was brought in to try and exorcise it. It ended up that he wouldn’t go over the threshold of the door. He said it was, too evil!
                              Anyway, getting back to the Walton case; I would not be too quick to dismiss the witchcraft angle. People today don’t seem to understand and grasp the great believe in witchcraft that rural communities, across the length and breath of the country, had in the past – and in some places, until this very day! The period of the Walton murder may be considered part of more recent history, but even in the 1940s most rural communities had more customs and believes steeped in the past than in the then present.
                              Rather than all these different theories that people come up with about Walton’s murder, the truth is probably in the version already known. The community was involved in witchcraft (or some darker form of it); Walton fell out with them and because of it suffered the consequences. Maybe it was only one or two people, who actually committed the murder, but it was on behalf of the community and it had their approval, and when the authorities came calling the community closed ranks.
                              Ordinary people do not keep quiet about a murder in their community. Had it been a simple murder that one person had taken it upon themselves to commit (for their own reasons) then it would have had to come out. Somebody would have said something. You don’t get a whole community trying to protect a murderer. Something was going on that involved a lot of people, and that’s why until this day no-one there will talk about it to outsiders.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                A relatives perspective

                                As a distant relative of Charles Walton, living up to recently in the village, I was interested to come across the murder on the forum, sadly I was disappointed to see the same rubbish being spouted about the case, so here are my thoughts on some of the entries posted on this thread....

                                Entry by ianincleveland
                                I think Fabian was convinced P was the killer but couldnt prove it.
                                We'll probably never know

                                Have actually been to Lower Quinton and even now its hardly a very hospitable place
                                I'll mention it to the Parish council !
                                best not to mention the Walton murder,people even now just turn their backs and refuse to say a word
                                Most people in the village are sick and tired of talking about the murder.


                                Larry
                                ....He was old enough to have been around when
                                the murder happened.... when I later on brought the subject of the murder up
                                (I didn’t know at the time that the locals
                                were still so touchy about it. it happened years before so what’s the problem?), he just turned funny, walked away, and wouldn’t talk to me anymore.
                                There's a very good chance that the person you spoke to either knew, or was a relative of, the alleged murderer, or of the murder victim so it's hardly going to go down well in conversation. Don't forget that Quinton at the time of the murder was much smaller than it is now.

                                I found the whole area around there had a strange otherworldly atmosphere about it a lot of the time. There was certainly a lot of paranormal activity going on. This wasn’t just imagined by me, but confirmed to me by a lot of other people’s experiences as well.
                                Really!

                                The community was involved in witchcraft (or some darker form of it); Walton fell out with them and because of it suffered the consequences.

                                Maybe it was only one or two people, who actually committed the murder, but it was on behalf of the community and it had their approval, and when the authorities came calling the community closed ranks.

                                Ordinary people do not keep quiet about a murder in their community. Had it been a simple murder that one person had taken it upon themselves to commit (for their own reasons) then it would have had to come out.

                                Somebody would have said something. You don’t get a whole community trying to protect a murderer. Something was going on that involved a lot of people, and that’s why until this day no-one there will talk about it to outsiders.
                                Absolute rubbish, do you want to know why the papers linked the case to Witchcraft? Because the press offered free drinks to any villagers' willing to talk about the murder, and what do the press like? That's right, a good story, and what could be better than Witchcraft?!

                                There is no conspiracy, someone was murdered, a horrific act at any time, but even more keenly felt in a small rural community. I'll leave it to "Miffy-Moo" to close :

                                I lived in Lower Quinton until I was 25 (11 years ago ago), in fact my bedroom window overlooked Meon Hill.

                                As a general rule, I don't think the villagers are purposefully keeping quiet on the subject I believe that since so much time has passed memories fade etc. etc.

                                I remember asking my aunt about it when I was little and she suggested that Alfred Potter was the murderer and witchcraft played no part in it.

                                My grandad provided an alibi for a farmhand who was under suspicion at the time.

                                I think it's one of those mysteries that will never be solved. but good hunting and keep me informed !

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