#canewdon

A Host of Hauntings (1973), p.150

Though you may not not have heard of Canewdon, the little town in the county of Essex is locally famous for its legends of witchcraft and ghostly goings on. A witch even features on its village sign alongside the Danish Viking king Canute who is believed to have camped there during the Battle of Assandun due to its strategic location atop a hill which overlooks the River Crouch to the North and the River Roach to the South.

Most of the stories and legends are focused around the 14th century church of St Nicholas. There are a number of reports of ghost sightings at the church, including a  “grey lady with a poke bonnet and no face who floats towards the river on moonless nights” and a “headless ghost who has a tendency to pick unwary victims up and deposit them in a nearby ditch”. A popular legend is that by going around the church you will summon different entities such as witches that force you to dance with them if you walk around the church at midnight, and by running anti-clockwise round the church on the night of Halloween, you could summon Satan and trade your soul.

This last legend made the church very popular on Halloween and, particularly in the eighties and nineties, there was a huge flocking to Canewdon on Halloween nights causing havoc for the locals, until the police were forced to cordon off the village. Nowadays the hype has died down, probably helped by the fact that kids have more easily accessed entertainment and don’t like to play outside. But the police still keep the church cordoned off on the 31st of October.

But most famous of all are the legends of witches abound in Canewdon. One saying goes that there will always be six witches in Canewdon. “Three of cotton, three of silk”. Meaning three of the lower class and three of the upper class. Some believe that these malevolent witches were under the control of a Wizard or a Master of Witches who could summon them at will with the use of a wooden whistle.

The infamous Mathew Hopkins, known as the “Witchfinder General” was responsible for over 300 executions of supposed witches in East Anglia during the 14 months between 1645 and 1646, putting to death 68 people in Bury St. Edmunds alone. But there was apparently one place he didn't dare venture; Canewdon. Maybe there were no witches in Canewdon during his active years? Or perhaps the people of this little village were afraid of their resident witches putting a curse on them. Maybe they just didn’t have enough money to pay the Witchfinder General for his services (Stowmarket apparently paid him £23 for clearing their town of witches, bearing in mind that in that period a day’s wages was  2.5 pence). Or perhaps there was, luckily, no one with moles or warts (the Devil’s mark) in the village at the time. 

I’ve visited the village of Canewdon on a few occasions, because it lies just north of my own home town of Rochford. It is a small place with few houses, many of them very little and very old. Particularly the ones leading up to the churchyard, some of which have little witch ornaments in their windows. Although not a particularly creepy place, it has an unsettling atmosphere, partially due to its small size and isolation (it is surrounded by fields and marshes and there is only a couple of back roads that lead to it). 

The church itself seems much the same as any old church in England, but nevertheless, while walking in the churchyard I always get the unsettling feeling of someone watching me, causing me to occasionally stop and look around. When I visited at night, I experienced no paranormal activity, but the church has a very strong gravitas which makes you want to stare at the building for elongated periods of time. 

I plan to visit again at night to walk around the church, and on some other occasion go inside and take a peek.