Esther, a Nonington witch

The parish of Nonington did not escape the horror and injustice of the “witch-hunts” in Puritan Kent. In his book “Those Superstitions”, published in 1932, Sir Charles Iggleston tells the sad story of the persecution and death of Esther, a “witch” who lived and supposedly practiced her “craft” somewhere in Nonington. Unfortunately neither Esther’s surname nor the location of her house was recorded and the date of Esther’s ordeal and subsequent death in unclear, but most likely occurred between 1640 and 1660.
Esther was an elderly woman who apparently enveigled superstitious inhabitants of Nonington into believing that they had acted in a sacrilegious manner that had led them into Satan’s clutches and thereby causing their everyday misfortunes. Esther told these misfortuned villagers that the only way to restore their good fortune was to visit her house for a consultation and cross her palm with silver. In the course of time the bedeviled parishioners appear to have concluded that it was in fact Esther herself “influencing the Evil One” to bring about their ill luck and misfortune for her financial gain, and that she was in reality perpetrating a devilish protection racket.
Upon this realisation a vengeful mob of deceived villagers seized Esther and carried her some three miles or so to a large pond in the neighbouring parish of Adisham to confirm her guilty of “witchcraft” by “swimming” her.  
Swimming was the practice of tying up and throwing the accused into a body of water to determine whether they sank or floated. Sinking to the bottom indicated that the accused was innocent whilst floating indicated their guilt. In proving their innocence many of those accused of being a witch drowned!

Above left: Trial by water, or swimming a witch. A 1613 wood cut
Above right: Adisham Pond, where the wretched Esther was “tried” and subsequently stoned to death by a superstitious Nonington mob. The church is just a few yards away.

When  Esther and her captors arrived at Adisham Pond the hapless Esther was bound hand and foot in the prescribed way and summarily thrown into its waters by the  vengeful accusatory mob of Nonington parishioners for a divine judgement and the “swimming” appears to have proved her guilt to their satisfaction.  
With Esther’s guilt proven beyond all doubt, at least to her accusers, Igglesden goes on to describe how the righteously enraged mob punished the hapless old woman : “Yelling and mad with wrath, they pelted the poor old creature with stones until ‘a farmer called upon his men to rescue her’, but she died, and so her persecutors said she must be a witch!”
Justice had indeed been done!

Although the parish of Nonington was well supplied with ponds at this time it would appear that none were thought suitable by the vengeful inhabitants of the parish to administer “justice” to a witch. The large pond in the neighbouring parish of Adisham which was directly in front of the parish church was well known for being deep and dangerous.  Some 140 years after this awful event William Hasted wrote of Adisham and its pond: “The village, consisting of about ten houses, is situated, not very pleasantly, in a bottom, having a large and dangerous pond, through which the road leads, in the middle of it; near it, on a hill, stand the church and court lodge”.
The pond was only completely filled in in the 1960’s and now lies under the modern road junction of Adisham Street with the Canterbury road.

At present the date of Esther’s ordeal and subsequent death in unclear, but it most likely occurred between 1640 and 1660. There is no record in the Nonington parish burial records of any Esther or Ester being interred in St. Mary’s churchyard during the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, but if she Esther had been interred in St. Mary’s churchyard Esther would almost certainly have been buried in an unmarked grave, probably with no record kept of the burial or grave because of her alleged crimes and how her death occurred.
Alternatively, Esther’s body may have been buried in unconsecrated ground because of her alleged crimes and cause of death, although during this period Nonington parishioners who took their own lives had their causes of death listed in the records and appear to have been buried in consecrated ground, not in unconsecrated ground as was the custom elsewhere for suicides. Those found guilty of witchcraft were often buried under heavy rocks or slabs to prevent them rising from the grave.
The actual reason for the absence of any entry for an interment may be that after the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 any “respectable parishioners of some standing” in the parish of Nonington who were either involved in Esther’s extrajudicial trial and execution, did not actually participate but allowed it to take place, or who did not act afterwards to report or record it with the judicial authorities would not want any record of that event.
Nonington appears only to have had three recorded vicars during the 17th century, the first two recorded are James Hathway in 1611 and Samuel Wells in 1652, it’s therefore possible that the event occurred prior to Samuel Wells taking office. In the absence of a vicar the parish records and annual returns to Church authorities were kept and prepared by members of the Parish Vestry, some of whom may have been involved in the death of Esther, or at the very least must have been aware of it as the “trial” was well attended and took place out in the open.
It should also be asked what were the Nonington and Adisham parish constables doing at the time? The parish constable was appointed yearly by the local magistrates and was usually a member of the Vestry.

The Boys of Fredville and the Hammonds of St. Alban’s Court were then the two main land-owning families within the parish of Nonington and members of these two families along with lesser land-owners and other prominent parishioners must have been aware of Esther’s trial and subsequent death, certainly at the very least after the event.
The Boys family were very prominent in local politics and Sir Edward Boys and Major John Boys both held positions of authority before and during the Civil War and Commonwealth periods. Both families also acted as magistrates, as did other prominent land-owners in the parishes surrounding Nonington and Adisham. The Archbishop of Canterbury also owned the Curleswood Park estate, now mainly covered by the village of Aylesham, to which the the Nonington parishioners and their prisoner would have passed close by.
Were any of the land-owners complicate in the trial? Probably not, but the lack of any record of the death or legal action afterwards would indicate they allowed it to be concealed. It would appear to be a conspiracy shrouded by the mists of time of which the true facts may one day come to light!

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For more information regarding witchcraft in East Kent please click on the picture below: