Category: Women
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Margaret ‘Molly’ Leigh, the Staffordshire Witch
The real problem with tales of local witches and evil graves is that you can never truly enjoy them.
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The Woman Who Jumped and Lived
In 1885, Sarah Ann Henley was 22 years old and working as a barmaid at the Rising Sun pub in Ashton.
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The Fays: Psychic Tokens and Spiritualist Identity Theft
In the late 19th century, two fields really took off – personal merchandising and token collecting.
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Empress Elisabeth’s Mourning Mask
A closer look at the world’s most famous mourning mask.
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The Last Witch of Scotland
What may seem to be a simple piece of masonry is in fact the memorial to the most brutal and hysterical of executions.
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The Car Park Grave of Mary Ellis
Beneath the tarmac of Loews Theater car park in New Brunswick lie the remains of Mary Ellis. For the last 193 years, she has occupied…
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Ghosts on Film: Hampton Court Palace
See them walking hand in hand across the bridge at midnight…
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Nanette Stocker, the Smallest Woman in the Kingdom
Nanette (incorrectly recorded as ‘Nanetta’ on her stone) is a forgotten music hall star and little person who died with a huge following.
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Kim Cattrall: The Unwelcome Cleopatra
What, so you thought I couldn’t link Sex and the City with bizarre grave controversies? Bet your finest patent heels I can.
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Love Me, Love My Dead Husband’s Calcified Heart
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was not simply a literary force, but a tragic, romantic, gothic icon whose exploits in sex and death put the rest of…
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Annie Fairlamb Mellon: The Geordie Medium.
Annie Fairlamb Mellon was one of the UK’s greatest materialisation mediums and is so rarely celebrated for her weird and wonderful claims.
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Stanisława Tomczyk, Medium – Running with Scissors
Tomczyk’s main draw as a medium was her claim that she could levitate objects with the power of her mind, stop clocks and ‘influence the…
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Mary Toft: The Woman Who Birthed Rabbits
In 1726, when the rest of the country were dealing with periodic harvest failures, Mary Toft sat at home and gave birth to rabbits.
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A Sensation in Quebec!
‘A Quebec Woman Creates a Sensation, Riding Through St. John Street in a Hearse, Reclining on the Coffin-Bed, and Smoking a Pipe…’
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Collection Feature: Agnes Sturgeon
The life of Agnes Sturgeon has expanded beyond her small, folded memorial.
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Nancy Luce, The Chicken Lady
For company, Nancy may not have had humans, but she had her chickens…
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The House of Faces
Over a period of seven days, the mysterious stain turned into the clear image of a face. A face that would not disappear, no matter…
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Hélène Smith: The Medium Who Spoke to Martians
Scientists and social reformers may be all well and good, but what about a young woman who spoke to aliens?
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Hidden Pre-Raphaelites and Tiny Women at Birmingham Cathedral
In the centre of Birmingham, flanked by pubs and fashionable wine bars, stands a dinky cathedral and a handful of sporadically placed headstones.
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The Shrieking Pits of Norfolk
Framed by poppy fields and arable farming, these chocolate-box villages conceal an ancient evil, deep within their land.
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Helen Peters Nosworthy: The Medium Behind ‘Ouija’
Without thinking, we attribute Ouija’s creation and branding to a huge faceless company, peddling plastic ponies in one hand and sprit communication devices in the…
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Cora L. V. Scott – Medium, Spiritualist, Icon.
This week on Burials and Beyond, I’d like to introduce you to Cora L V Scott, one of the most influential mediums in the 19thcentury…
Burials & Beyond 