Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other MatterWalter, J. Conway (James Conway)
History
Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood: Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter
Walter, J. Conway (James Conway)
Woodhall Spa (England)
his hands patients receive the most scientific treatment, he having been
the first to introduce, many years ago, the electrolytic treatment, so
effective in internal cases.
A “Home for Gentlewomen,” in reduced circumstances, and needing the
Woodhall treatment, was established in 1894 by the present writer, in
co-operation with Mr. Cuffe, as hon. medical officer. It is under the
patronage of his Grace the Duke of Rutland, and other distinguished
persons. It was at first located in two bungalows, but now occupies a
roomy residence on the Horncastle-road. It has been very generously
supported, and has proved a great boon in many needy cases.
The annals of the Woodhall neighbourhood are not without their tragic
features; and deeds of lawlessness have occurred equal to anything of the
kind recorded in modern times.
On June 22nd, in the year 1822, a young man named Stennet Jeffrey was
returning from Horncastle Fair to the farm of his employer, Mr. Warrener
(still occupied by members of the same family), when, as he was passing
along the footpath through a part of Whitehall Wood, called “the
Wilderness,” he was attacked by, as was supposed at the time, two men
against whom he had given information of their poaching. They were
accompanied by a female named Sophy Motley, still remembered by some of
my informants as a big, masculine woman. After a desperate struggle for
his life, a track being trampled down round the tree, by which he tried
to elude them (the grass, as tradition says, never growing again
afterwards), he was overpowered and foully done to death. His body was
found thrown into the ditch near at hand, with the throat cut. They
carried off his watch, which he had bought at the fair that day, and his
money. A sovereign was found near the spot a few years afterwards by a
man who was ploughing in the adjoining field. The present writer
remembers being told in after years, by a man living at Woodhall, who was
at the time working in a field not far off, that he heard cries for help,
but did not know what they meant, and so the poor fellow was left to
struggle unaided in the unequal conflict. The tree has been seen by the
writer, round which he tried to escape. It stood at the south-west end
of the path through the wood, about two miles from Woodhall Spa, and was
inscribed with the rudely-cut names of many a visitor to the spot. The
parties to the murder were supposed to have come from Coningsby Moor, and
this was confirmed by the fact that they afterwards stopped for
refreshment at a small public house kept by Mrs. Copping, at Fulsby,
which lay in the direction of Coningsby Moor. Near there some
bloodstained clothes were found concealed in a hedge. A reward of £100
was offered for their apprehension. The woman Copping, at the
public-house, was, it is said, fully aware of their guilt, but dared not
say anything about it. The two men were convicted, and transported for
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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