One of the highlights of a recent trip up North – was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with ‘Alice Nutter’ – Tuesday, 16th April 2019.
…especially as on Monday, 15th April 2019 – I too experienced a ‘witch trial’ of a sort – where my inquisitors outnumbered me 3:1. It was a meeting where superstitions and prejudices – not fairness and sound arguments determined the outcome; my inquisitors didn’t listen to reason either.
Then an accidental——transcendental meeting with ‘Alice Nutter’ at the roadside en route to the top of Pendle Hill the day after – reinforced my resolve to keep on metaphorically ‘running up that hill’; onwards, upwards——sometimes sideways, but never back; Truth knows only one way.
The way to the top of Pendle Hill.
There were other routes our satnav could have taken us from North Yorkshire to Pendle Hill in Lancashire – but it took us along the ‘Blacko Bar Road’ – where I was immediately stopped in my tracks by the quiet dignity of ‘Alice Nutter’ – a Roughlee gentlewoman immortalised in Brass and Steel…
Alice Nutter was condemned to hang on the 20th. August 1612 – as a so-called ‘Witch’ – despite her plea of not guilty.
In the early 17th century – under the rule of notorious witch-hunter King James I – if someone so much pointed the finger at you – there was little hope of escaping the noose – especially as the accused were denied legal representation and the right to call witnesses in their defense. For Alice there was no escaping her heavy chains except through torturous execution; death by hanging in 1612 was in truth – slow strangulation that could take minutes not seconds.
Alice’s memorial stands in the perfect setting – she’s on the sweep of the road through ‘Roughlee’ – opposite ‘Pendle Water’ – where it’s easy to pull-over and stop a while…
I met Alice in broad daylight——but I can quite imagine that at dusk – or after dark when the Moon is risen – she would appear even more life-like. The ‘animated’ life-sized sculpture of Alice Nutter —designed and made by local sculptor David Palmer – is quite one of the most hauntingly beautiful and visually powerful memorials to a person that once freely walked this Earth – that I have ever laid eyes——or hands on; it’s true to say – Alice ‘moves’ in more ways than one.
I love too – how Alice is immortalised just a few feet away from Roughlee’s War Memorial; says so much about how Pendle folk feel about one of their own – 400 years on.
I don’t think it’s possible to visit Pendle and not feel affected by the atmosphere of the place; it’s a feeling that hangs in the air like a dead weight at times. That said, our walk to the top of Pendle Hill blew the cobwebs away; the views across Lancashire were breathtaking – as was the sight of the low Sun afire over Pendle Hill at our departure.
‘Pendle’ a place I won’t forget – or the name, ‘Alice Nutter’.
