St Giles Cemetery

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Location The Mount, Boughton


Few passers-by appreciate the grim history of what was once the village of Spital St Giles or Spital Boughton. Over the years, this small patch of land has been visited by each of death, war and pestilence (for famine, see below).

Contents

[edit] The Cemetery at the Crossroads

St Giles Cemetery is found at Boughton, just where the road towards Tarvin splits into two around a John Douglas half-timbered building. Douglas also designed the nearby St Paul's Church. This ancient crossroads has been said to be the meeting place of two Roman roads, the Tarvin Road (A51) and the Whitchurch Road (A41). Tarvin road is definitely Roman, but there is some doubt about the Whitchurch (Mediolanum) Road - although cropmarks from Huntington, through Saighton towards Hatton probably show the line of a minor Roman road branching off the Dee valley route. Sandy Lane provides access to the south and possibly some branch of Hoole Lane or Church/Whealstone/Newton Lane also ended hereabouts. So it is a cemetery by a 'crossroads' of sorts, often said to be a place of ill-omen.

The cemetery is the grass mound surrounded by a wall and is obviously very full. There are only a few gravestones. At the western end of the cemetery is a drinking fountain (one wonders where the water comes from! - although the springs hereabouts have supplied Chester with water since Roman times) erected by a Ms Humble of Christleton.

The inscription on a stone slab marking the cemetery reads:

  • "Here stood the Leper hospital and chapel of St Giles founded early in the 12th Century and endowed by successive Norman earls of Chester they remained in constant use until 1643 when defensive measures during the siege of Chester necessitated the demolition of buildings outside the city walls. The cemetery remained to mark the site and in time the little village of Spital clustered round it. In 1644 the royalist defenders suffered great loss of life in a gallant sortie in Boughton and many of the fallen were buried here. It was also used for victims of the plagues which ravaged the city in the 16th and 17th centuries. Being extra-parochial the site was granted to the corporation by Charles II in 1685 as a burial ground and through a period in the charge of St John's parish it remains in their hands. When the protestant martyr George Marsh was burnt at the stake on Gallows Hill close by his ashes were collected by his friends and buried here.The last burial took place in 1854."

[edit] Pestilence - St Giles Hospital

A leper hospital dedicated to St. Giles (patron saint of the lame) was located nearby. The inmates of the hospital enjoyed extensive privileges, which included a toll on all food bought for sale in Chester and a fishing boat on the Dee. The hospital also came to possess land and rents in and near Chester - some came to the hospital with new inmates: land in Eastgate Street was given by the relatives of Yseult, who, 'smitten by the scourge of a visitation from on high', had been admitted to the hospital.

By the time of Joeseph Hemmingway, writing in the 1830's there appears to have been some sort of "asylum" hereabouts for single women who had become pregnant. Hemmingway shows that while some prejudices had been recognised by the 1830's others had not:

  • On this spot, George March, an early reformer, suffered martyrdom, an unfortunate victim of the diabolical bigotry of the infamous Queen Mary, for conscientious scruples. Opposite the Spittal is that humane institution, the Penitentiary for unfortunate females.

St Giles at British History

Further information on St Giles can be found at this website

[edit] War - The Civil War

As noted on the inscription, a sortie of the Royalists took place here. Boughton turnpike was captured by Michael Jones in 1645 as part of the larger engagement that culminated at Rowton Heath - note that the inscription refers to 1644. The Royalists counter-attacked, but is perhaps better described as a suicidal charge. The dead added to the crowding in St Giles cemetery. Pestilence, in the form of a fatal fever, caught up with Jones at the Siege of Waterford in December 1649.

Chester and the Civil War

On an even more macabre note, local legend has it that one of the earls of Chester (Hugh of Cyfeiliog) cobbled the road here with the "sculls of defeated Welshmen". The Chester Annals for the year 1169 record:

  • Hic natus Ranulphus III. filius Hugonis comes Cestrie. In hoc etiam anno interfecit Hugo comes Cestrie magnam multitudinem Walensium juxta pontem de Baldert de quorum capitibus factum unum de aggeribus apud Hospitalem infirmorum extra Cestriam
  • This year Randle III., son of Hugh, earl of Chester, was born. In this year also Hugh, earl of Chester, slew a great multitude of Welshmen, near the bridge of Baldert, of whose heads one of the mounds at the hospital for the sick outside Chester is formed.

[edit] Famine - Antique Shops

The area used to have many junk and antique shops and, while there are fewer today, it is still worth visiting. It seems that 'famine' has also now arrived in Spital St Giles, as these are slowly closing. One of the best, now sadly gone, was a rambling shambles with an upstairs room filled with Grandfather Clocks - all running and very spooky.

[edit] Death - Gallows Hill

[edit] George Marsh

Nearby (about 75m towards Chester), at what is now Barrel Well Hill and was once Gallows Hill, stands the obelisk to George Marsh, an outspoken puritan preacher, from Bolton, who was burned at the stake on the north side of the road, after being questioned by the Bishop of Chester.

In his "History of the City of Chester" (1831) Joseph Hemmingway states that Marsh was imprisoned beside the abbey gateway:

  • The two end houses adjoining the gate stand on the site of an old edifice, called the prison-house. On pulling down the latter, about five years ago, a narrow cell was discovered on the first floor, from which all light was excluded, in which, it is said, that martyr to popish cruelty, George Marsh, was immured, previous to his execution at Boughton.

To be fair to Bishop George Choates, he did give Marsh plenty of opportunity to recant, but evidently Marsh was quite an obstinate fellow - a Bolton legend has it that a mark on the stone floor of Smithills Hall is a "footprint" left by Marsh stamping his foot - so off to the pyre he went. A woodcut of Marsh's execution shows how the thoughtful inhabitants of Chester (the city can be seen in the background) had arranged a barrel of pitch/tar above his head so as to hasten his end (which didn't work too well). Despite being offered a last-minute opportunity to recant (by the fellow on the horse), a stubborn Marsh is uttering the words "not upon that condition" while the faggots are being lit. The rest of the execution was something of a trial for Marsh, as there was a shortage of wood and the rather exposed fire kept blowing away from him.

Bishop Choates did not long survive Marsh. After Marsh's execution, Choates preached a sermon denouncing Marsh as a heretic. He was subsequently stricken with a fatal venereal disease, seen as divine retribution. It is recorded (see link below) that:

  • "within short time after the just judgment of God appeared upon the said Bishop, who through his wicked and adulterous behaviour was (most shamefully it is to be spoken) burned with a harlot and died thereof".

Marsh and the Bishop from Foxe's book of martyrs

[edit] Other Executions

Marsh wasn't the only person slain here. John Plessington was hung, drawn and quartered (or drawn, hung and quartered) in 1679. He was cannonised on 25 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

At least three "witches" were also hung (a fourth is said to have fled to Wrexham). Those hanged (15th October 1656) were:

  • Ellen Beach who "did exercise and practice the Invocation and conjuration of evil and wicked spirits, and consulted and covenanted with, entertayned, imployed, ffed and rewarded certayn evill and wicked spirits",
  • Anne Osboston having "on the 20th November exercised certayn artes and Incantations on Barbara Pott, late wife of John Pott, of Ranowe, from the effects whereof she died on the 20th of January then next following", and, lastly,
  • Anne Thornton who did "wickedly, divillishly and feloniously devise, excercise and practiuce certaiyne divellish and wicked acts".

Gallows Hill, as its name suggests, was the Tyburn of Chester and the exact location may well be the small park near the house "Edgeley". A wealth of gory detail can be found in Roy Wilding's book 'Death in Chester'. The following tale about the gallows is found in Joseph Hemmingway's History of the City of Chester - written in 1831 (a link to the full text can be found on the Chester Books page):

  • About the centre of this elegant group of buildings, thirty years ago, stood that memento mori to the passing traveller, vulgarly called the gallows, where many of our unfortunate fellow creatures haveforfeited their lives to the violated laws of their country. A short time prior to this period, this terrific engine of death had its station exactly on the opposite side of the road, which, on account of its elevated situation, received the appellation of Gallows Hill, which, hy a precipitate descent, and without an inclosure, went down to the Dee. There is an incident connected with this place of execution worthy of recording. In May, 1801, as three malefactors, convicted of burglary at the spring assizes, were conveying to execution in a cart, one of them, named Clare, when opposite the gallows, and just when the vehicle was turning, gave a sudden spring, and threw himself upon the top of the precipice descending to the river, and jumped, rolled, and tumbled along till he was precipitated into it. The weight of his irons sunk him to the bottom, and before he could be brought up, life was entirely extinct. Although the unfortunate fellow thus evaded the letter of his sentence, in escaping being hanged by the neck till he was dead, yet the finisher of the law was unwilling to forego his official duty, and the dead body of the criminal was tied up after his breath had departed. The most afflictive part of the tragedy was, that the two poor men who were in a like condemnation, were kept in a state of awful suspense until the dead carcase of the drowned man was tied up beside them.

But at least the view from the gibbet was good (spot the "scull"!).

Image:Gibbetview.JPG

[edit] Sources

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