Publication Date:
​31st December 2021

'Dreadful Murder'

'For a week past, the water in the well of the Duke of York public-house at Brompton, Kent, had been affected with so nauseous a taste and smell that it became unfit for use. The servant, when drawing, found something hindered the bucket from filling…and thought that she perceived something like a body, and on moving the rope backwards and forwards to fill the bucket, she found pieces of skin and animal substance adhering to it when it was drawn up. Within the last few days, the smell at the mouth of the well had become so exceedingly offensive that no one would go near it.’

Map showing Brompton, Kent

‘On Saturday morning, some soldiers who were drinking at the Duke of York, offered, for a trifling reward, to go down the well and clear it of its impurity. A young man was accordingly lowered down, but before he arrived at the bottom, he was almost overpowered by the fetid effluvia, and called out to the men who were lowering him to stop. Having waited a few seconds and recovered himself, he proceeded. He, with infinite horror and dismay, discovered a naked human body floating on its back. To be certain, he took hold of the hair, when the body rolled over, and the hair and scalp became detached from the skull and remained in his hand. Terrified in the extreme, and almost reduced to insensibility at the horrid sight, he called to the men on the brink of the well to draw him up…’

Old Brompton, Kent

Bow Street Magistrates Court

THE WILLOW MARSH MURDER
Now Published

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

Book Cover:
The Willow Marsh Murder