The Cage at St Osyth: a nineteenth-century medieval witch prison

I'm posting this under "Other Stuff" because it doesn't really have anything to do with the paranormal. 

The Cage in St Osyth, Essex, is a former village lock-up which is currently being marketed as a paranormal venue. It's claimed as another in the series of "Most Haunted Houses in England", and is available for ghosthunting evenings, seances, ghostwalks and - for all I know - Bar Mitzvahs. It's also attracted interest from serious researchers. Part of the sales pitch is that it's a medieval witch prison, where a local witch, Ursula Kemp, was confined before her execution in 1582:

[Image: the-cage.jpg]

Ursula Kemp was a real person, but did she have anything at all to do with the Cage?

As English village lock-ups go, the Cage would be exceptionally old if it did date back as far as the 16th century. According to an article in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society for 1927, one of the oldest lock-ups in the county was that at Bradwell, which was then believed to have been built c. 1700. But according to a recent blog post, it was really built as recently as 1817:
http://roys-roy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/l...ntree.html

That doesn't tell us anything for sure about the age of the Cage. But an obvious source of information is old maps. The Tithe Map of St Osyth was prepared to accompany a Tithe Apportionment dated 31 January 1839. It's available as pay-per-view at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/tithe/. And nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps can be found at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/. Below are the relevant sections of the Tithe Map and the 1897 Ordnance Survey map. The site of the Cage is indicated in red on the latter, and the red circle shows where it should appear on the former. But clearly there's nothing there.

[Image: Osyth.jpg]

Sadly, this "medieval witch prison" was built in the nineteenth century.

I'm posting this under "Other Stuff" because it doesn't really have anything to do with the paranormal. 

The Cage in St Osyth, Essex, is a former village lock-up which is currently being marketed as a paranormal venue. It's claimed as another in the series of "Most Haunted Houses in England", and is available for ghosthunting evenings, seances, ghostwalks and - for all I know - Bar Mitzvahs. It's also attracted interest from serious researchers. Part of the sales pitch is that it's a medieval witch prison, where a local witch, Ursula Kemp, was confined before her execution in 1582:

[Image: the-cage.jpg]

Ursula Kemp was a real person, but did she have anything at all to do with the Cage?

As English village lock-ups go, the Cage would be exceptionally old if it did date back as far as the 16th century. According to an article in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society for 1927, one of the oldest lock-ups in the county was that at Bradwell, which was then believed to have been built c. 1700. But according to a recent blog post, it was really built as recently as 1817:
http://roys-roy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/l...ntree.html

That doesn't tell us anything for sure about the age of the Cage. But an obvious source of information is old maps. The Tithe Map of St Osyth was prepared to accompany a Tithe Apportionment dated 31 January 1839. It's available as pay-per-view at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/tithe/. And nineteenth century Ordnance Survey maps can be found at https://www.old-maps.co.uk/. Below are the relevant sections of the Tithe Map and the 1897 Ordnance Survey map. The site of the Cage is indicated in red on the latter, and the red circle shows where it should appear on the former. But clearly there's nothing there.

[Image: Osyth.jpg]

Sadly, this "medieval witch prison" was built in the nineteenth century.

Maybe it was built using medieval materials   
Or it’s a reference to the catering?

Maybe it was built using medieval materials   
Or it’s a reference to the catering?

Yes. Or perhaps it's one of those phantom cottages, and it was invisible when the cartographers came round.

I know estate agents' claims are always to be treated with suspicion, but really - should they be advertising a property as medieval when it was built in the 19th century?
https://www.homedomus360.com/property/cage/

I contacted the estate agent last week to let him know that the property he is selling is 19th-century, not medieval. His reaction was to suggest the 19th-century building might be on the site of an earlier one. I'm not sure how that was relevant, but he did assure me that he would "make sure that the description does not appear to be an historical statement which would be totally verified."

Strangely the description on the website still reads "The Cage was a medieval prison where thirteen witches were kept in 1582 while awaiting trial."
https://www.homedomus360.com/property/cage/

Actually, I think he's taking a bit of a risk, given that the marketing revolves almost entirely around the fake historical associations of the house. But anyway I thought I'd mention that he'd been told ...

An article on The Cage appeared in the Daily Mirror yesterday:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/in...e-16510693

As usual, the article describes it as a medieval prison where witches were held. The estate agent is quoted as saying that the property could be rented out for at least twice the normal amount because of the paranormal aspect. To my mind that's all the more reason why it should be made clear that it appears not to be medieval at all, and therefore to have no association with the St Osyth witches.

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page - the property has reportedly been sold for £240,000:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic...indow.html

It's quite funny that the article presupposes that the paranormal claims have made the property harder to sell, despite the fact that the estate agent has acknowledged that they would increase its value!

Funny to read an account of a visit to the Cage last year by reporters from Essex Live:
https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-ne...ht-2165423

At first it seemed quite disappointing, but when they tried calling out to the spirits as they knocked on a wall, "To our horror, and surprise, we heard a loud knock in reply echoing through the house on the opposite side of the wall in the bathroom."

They knocked again "before hearing another loud knock in reply"!! 

Terrified and sick with fear, they were about to run out of the house and never return, when ... "To our relief, it turned out to be a neighbour knocking on the back door directly below us, asking us to keep the noise down ..."

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page - the property has reportedly been sold for £240,000:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic...indow.html

It's quite funny that the article presupposes that the paranormal claims have made the property harder to sell, despite the fact that the estate agent has acknowledged that they would increase its value!

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page again - curiously, having reported 11 weeks ago that the property had been sold, the Daily Mail has reported the same thing again:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...years.html

The estate agent is quoted as saying that the buyer had fallen in love with the property, "but not believing at all into the supernatural element of it."

Let's hope they didn't believe at all in the estate agent's description of it as medieval either, considering it wasn't built until the 19th century!