Betty (known as Sarah) was born in Cannington, Somerset in 1772 to parents Daniel and Mary Davis. She was married from her family home at the age of 18 to Willliam Walford , son of Edmund and Betty who lived in Over Stowey. There are parish records showing the Walford family living in Over Stowey since before the sixteenth century.
When William was 23, he took an interest in a local lass who had already had an illegitimate child with his cousin John. Her name was Jane Shorney and her parents kept The Castle of Comfort Inn nearby. He got Jane pregnant in 1787 and was ordered to pay upkeep for their daughter named in the parish register as Betty Walford.
William (b.1764) had already had his share of tragedy, in 1789 his cousin (having made the same Jane Shorney pregnant for a second time) was forced into marriage with her, as his mother refused to pay another bond to keep the child, leaving John with a choice of imprisonment or marriage (This however, might be hearsay as I am yet to find records of a bastard child for Jane other than the child she had with William).
John, after only 3 weeks of marriage beat Jane half to death in woodland near their home and finished her off by cutting her throat. He tried to drag her heavily pregnant body to a disused mine shaft to dispose of her, but was unable to, as by all accounts, Jane was a heavy set woman, even without the extra weight of carrying the child. He rolled her body into local earthworks, part of Dowsborough Hill Fort, known as Dead Woman's Ditch.
Jane's body was discovered the following morning, and the knife and clothing found in John Walford's home had her blood on. John was tried, and astonishingly, received much public support. Even the Judge wept on sentencing him to death. It was usual to send the body of an executed felon found guilty of a capital murder to the anatomists, but John was hanged in chains for a year and a day at the spot of his execution. This was in sight of his family home, so his mother would have seen his body decomposing every day.
It was said that he was still a better looking man than many, even after being dead for a year when he was cut down by local men and buried under his execution place. It is still to this day called Walford's Gibbet.
William and Sarah had a total of seven children together, daughters, Sarah, Elizabeth and Ann, and sons Thomas, Edmund, William and Charles, before William died in 1809.
Sarah was living 'over the brush' with a man called James Thresher, when she was found suspended from a willow tree in October of 1821. According to his evidence at her inquest at Nether Stowey, they had quarrelled as he had refused to marry her, giving his reason for not being willing to do so as her 'owing money' to someone. He said that she had left the home they shared and it was also said at the inquest that she had tried to find alternative lodgings, but was unable to find anyone who would take her in.
The inquest jury of thirteen men voted 12 to 1 and found her to be of sound mind when she died and thus RP Caines (the Coroner) found her death to be felo de se. It was ordered that in the manner of the law (which was to change just two short years after Sarah's death) that she be taken to Bincombe Green and buried at the crossroads on the following day. She would have been staked through the heart with iron.
Was it self-murder, or something entirely more sinister? Although there is no record of the full transcript of the inquest - just newspaper reports, it seems that there could have been more to her death. There was a parish workhouse in Over Stowey, where Sarah could have gone if she was desperate for a bed. She also had children living locally.
An even bigger mystery surrounds Sarah today. Where is her body now? There is no record of her being disinterred after her burial and she certainly wasn't reported as being found when the road around Bincombe was widened.
Was she buried on the green, rather than the crossroads? It is a puzzle that may never be solved.
Sarah of the Crossroads
The comfort of Gods arms denied you
The walls of the Church never yours
In life or in death
A broken promise
Took away your will to live
Those who should have aided you
In your pain
Turned you away
They cast you aside because you loved
Unwisely
Cast you into unhallowed ground
At crossroads
Millions have passed you by
Unaware
But we know you lay there
Flowers we will bring
John and I
We will speak your name
With love
Not as one on the edge of society
But with love, as distant family
Your soul holds no stain
Sleep gently in the womb of the ground
May the rain wash away your pain
You are not forgotten
The snowdrops that grow on your grave
Are your tribute
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