FOUL DEEDS & SUSPICIOUS DEATHS IN STRATFORD & SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE

Softcover. The elegant spire of Holy Trinity Church, rising over the water meadows of the Avon Valley, is a typical image of Shakespeare's Stratford. The fact that Olive Bennett was brutally murdered and flung into the river from this very churchyard is not mentioned in most guide books. The real Stratford has been witness to riots, murders and feuds throughout its history. Some of these dark deeds, like the lady entombed alive in the crypt, inspired Shakespeare. The town sits amid a superstitious countryside, with ancient rituals, meetings on dark nights at primitive stone circles, and witches killed with pitchforks. Harvest failures led to riots by the starving poor. The ordinary inhabitants have always had their disagreements, jealousies and rivalries; and every once in a while these have been 'solved' by extreme violence. Stratford itself was regularly bathed in blood, from Roman times to the present-day. The blackened timbers of its houses hold their secrets well, inspiring horror stories like 'The Fall of the House of Usher', concealing unquiet spirits behind modern facades. Here is a gruesome chronicle of crime that paints a very different town and countryside to the tourist picture that most of us are led to expect. Illus., Appendix and Sources, + Index. 176pp. 8vo. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F.