But now, a new chapter of the story is being written. Such is the determination of pressure groups to exonerate the “witches”, that a recent petition to legally pardon them reached nearly 15,000 signatures – which, as it’s over the 10,000-signature threshold, means it will get a response from the Government.
The resulting headlines look likely to shine a renewed spotlight on the Pendle Hill villages, drawing a fresh wave of visitors – whether in search of pretty villages and bracing walks, or goosebumps courtesy of the area’s dark history. Luckily, as I discovered on a recent visit, there’s plenty to satisfy both camps.
I headed first to the village of Barley, where – as I drove past Alice’s former house, now an attractive row of stone cottages – an eerie mist settled over the higher reaches of Pendle Hill, a 557-metre escarpment, massive and brooding and indelibly linked to the Pendle Witches and rural Lancashire. “In the early 17th-century, this whole area was covered in thick forest and teeming with wolves and wild boar,” said my guide, Simon Entwistle, who knows arguably everything there is to know about the story and the area. “Alice and especially her poorer contemporaries would have lived quite harsh lives.”
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/lancashire-villages-witnessed-pendle-witches/
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Publish date : 2024-02-23 03:00:00
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