Black Hill long barrow on Low Bradley moor

A short walk up from Cononley station, above Farnhill, a huge round cairn and the battered remains of the long barrow are the first sight over the dry stone wall dividing Low Bradley Moor and Farnhill Moor. The long barrow is a rarity in these parts, I wondered whether its proximity to the Aire made it some kind of evidence for migration along the river upstream from East Yorkshire. The excavation notes recorded one male burial and several later cremations. The huge capstone looked impressive, cup and ring marked rocks are recorded here but we could see none on our visit.

The round cairn is huge but depleted in places, the huge dry stone wall next to it probably robbed it of its height.

Maria Marten most beautiful and fair. I promised I would marry her upon a certain day; Instead of that I was resolved to take her life away.

Whilst doing some research on Mary Bateman, I came across a similar case of reburial following the display of an executed criminal's remains. William Corder, who commited the infamous Red Barn murder which was documented in an extremely popular ballad, Maria Marten (Shirley Collins rendition is a favourite of mine...)

"She conceded that Corder, who confessed to the murder the night before he was hanged, was a villain.

"But at the end of the day he was a human being and had a right to be laid to rest," she said"

Partly this case makes me think I will be unsucessful in my attempts to get her buried, and partly it gives me hope that the issue is taken seriously enough to warrant an attempt. Mary Bateman's tongue, preserved and kept in the Bolling Hall museum, was destroyed in 1959 it was confirmed to me today by their social history advisor. If her tongue is considered too morbid an item to retain, her bones must surely be too. The indignity of her body being used as a publicity device for 'ghost hunts' and halloween parties seems to degrade the enormity of a mother's execution, an act which as a society we are supposed to have progressed beyond the need for.

Letter to Thackray - Mary Bateman

I wrote an email to the Thackray detailing my issues with the display of Mary Bateman's remains. It went as follows:



"I am writing in the regards to your current display of the remains of Mary Bateman, who you advertise as 'The Yorkshire Witch'. I find the display of an executed woman's remains, especially one who you identify as a witch, ill-fitting with the ethos of a progressive and scientific educational establishment. The incomplete skeleton seems to me to have little educational value beyond morbid shock value, genuine human skeletons that have been legitimately donated are not hard to come by and would be a far greater benefit to children and adults visiting the museum. The continued ill-treatment of her remains for the past 202 years seems to far exceed the nature of her crimes, however serious. This woman paid the ultimate price for her misdeeds during her life, she died pitifully and publicly. To continue to punish her now by displaying her in a disrespectful manner while other women and men who were also executed at the time were eventually buried and laid to rest begs the question, why is Mary Bateman still displayed? To me it seems obvious that her status as a witch seems to give cause to sensationalise her death and to monopolise on the barbaric treatment of her corpse post-mortem. I'm sure her body brings in good revenue for the museum, but I think the neglect of the moral issues of displaying a corpse for little other reason than her connection to a set of folk-beliefs is somewhat archaic. This woman is a part of our cultural heritage, she is a child of the city who's genetic material is still living, walking and breathing around us. From a scientific point of view, I think a display surrounding the continuing nature of DNA would be a far greater benefit, and of a far less morbid nature.

I think a burial for Mary Bateman is 202 years late, and the costs should be met by Leeds University, or whoever has profited the most from the display of her bones. However, I am quite willing to fund raise to help towards the costs."

I have no idea how much interest this small campaign has beyond myself and a few associates who have discussed it with me, but if anyone else wishes to write to them, you can email the museum at info@thackraymuseum.org

Mary Bateman

Image by Simon Bradley

The Yorkshire Witch is on display at the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds. Her incomplete skeleton, held together by sinew and flakes of mummified flesh seems to me to serve little purpose as an educational tool for children, more a spectacle of the kind supposedly abandoned along with side show 'freaks' and public hangings. A woman, who was nursing a baby at her breast in the hours before her execution at York, who has paid a far greater price than just death; not only was her corpse pickled, displayed, flayed and sold as strips for charms but now she is dealt further indignity as a permanent exhibit, an item of morbid curiosity.

I feel haunted by viewing her remains, I see little benefit in viewing them, more so an uncomfortable understanding that her status as 'cunning woman' alone resulted in the series of post-mortem assaults. She lived on Timble Bridge, near Leed's Parish Church, under which flowed the beck I see daily. I think of her every time I see the beck, and have traversed through the underground culverts to view the now-subterranean bridge, where once she too must have daily seen the water pass by.

I wish to free the Yorkshire Witch. I hope that within the next two weeks I can implore Leeds University, who own her remains, to give Mary Bateman's bones a burial. The 202nd anniversary of her execution falls on Sunday 20th of March 2011, the vernal equinox. I will write a letter, and post up a petition in the next few days to send to both the museum and the university.

Ilkley Moor

Just to quickly share some photos I've taken of Ilkley Moor in the mist. I have a distinct fondness for Ilkley Moor, and it has a personal significance in my life as a common setting for dreams. It began to feature heavily in my dreams at the start of last year, and has been a place I have returned to at points of key change in my life in the past few years. Dream Ilkley moor and the real moor are indistinguishable, they blend together seamlessly and are each as unchartable as the other.



we happened upon this wolf sculpture howling over the edge of Windgate Nick on the way to the Doubler Stones.

Dobrudden

High over Shipley Glen, Dobdrudden hill is the highest point over Baildon moor and therefore stands in clear view of Ilkley moor. The look out over the Yorkshire landscape is beautiful, and one can see why our tribal ancestors chose these high places to bury their dead. Dobrudden is a funereal landscape, dotted with cairns and, as a later addition, medieval bell pits lurk in the long grass with deceivingly deep falls. Next to the wall of the caravan park, propped up uncomfortably against a low wall is a beautifully marked stone:

I often wonder if, like pictish stones, the cups reference a lineage or memorialise families. The way cups are grouped, linked together and circled again reminds me of family trees.

Leeds scheduled monuments project and Mardship Bow

I happened upon a page on the Leeds government website, which is quite hard to navigate to from the front page. It details the ancient scheduled monuments in the area with helpful maps on how to reach them, although some of them are out of date and the maps slightly unhelpful. I have been trying in the past six months to gradually work my way through the whole list, in a quest to deeper understand the landscape in which I have placed myself, and to try and shift my focus from the mundane distractions that are propelled to the forefront of our world view.

One of my dearest friends, Simon Bradley, shares my love of deviation from the set paths of modern living and has written a novel about the domination of the Yorkshire Omnibus Company over time in future, waterlogged Leeds. Simon and me have wandered the non-streets of Leeds and its surrounds and have had many an occasion to feel the narrowing of permitted thoroughways bearing down on us. It is my worry that life no longer revolves around the passing of folklore and mythology as a totem of belonging in whereever you are, but instead a clinical familiarity replaces it all, cold to the idiosyncracies of the land.

The ginnels and snickerways are overgrown now, deemed too dangerous although the tall grass suggests even the dark-hearted steer clear. Entire postcodes of Leeds are ghost-towns of neglect, unfashionable and undeveloped they lack the shopping malls and bus routes which renders them unpalatable to the masses.



I love leeds for its strangeness, the dark corners and impossibly confused architecture. Mary Bateman dragging her flayed skin cloak through the meanwood beck under Timble Bridge. I hope, through the story-telling of my friends and I, that these myths are living on and stay within the collective psyche of the city.

I will try and post up all of my explorations of the scheduled monuments (the grey stone and carving of cocidius are already up!) to this blog in the near future.