Nearby to Cannock Chase is a little town called Rugeley, a little town filled with more history and culture than most people realise. Today, as part of the City of the Dead series, I will discuss the cemeteries in Rugeley, specifically those at the Old Chancel and St Augustine's church.
The original St Augustine’s church was built in the 12th century, although a church has been on the land since the 10th century. By the 19th century, Rugeley was growing from a small village to an industrious town, and the church was no longer big enough to accommodate everyone, so a new one was built opposite. The original church had parts removed to help fund the new church, but the ruins still stand, with its original grandeur still evident. It’s now known as the Old Chancel, surrounded by beautiful grounds and interesting graves. You can no longer enter the Old Chancel due to the structure's dangers.
On these grounds stands a grave that I consider one of my favourites (can you have favourite graves? Is that a thing?) – the grade II listed tomb of the two sisters. Elizabeth Cuting died in 1695, and her sister Emma Hollinhurst died the following year. The top of the stone grave is carved, depicting the sisters wrapped in a shroud with the top and the bottom knotted. This was the catalyst for the legend that the sisters were buried alive in sacks by none other than Oliver Cromwell himself. Obviously, this ignores the fact that Cromwell died in 1658, but why let facts get in the way of a good story? The truth is that the sisters chose to be buried in linen, defying the law of the time, saying that bodies should only be buried in wool. Apparently, you could be fined for being interred in linen, but I’m not sure how fining the dead worked out for them.
Some of the graves here are so old that their inscriptions have been long lost to the elements. Near the ruins are the remains of a 14th-century weeping cross that, at one point, was used as a single memorial to those buried within the grounds. The base of the cross has steps where a person who wanted to repent of their sins would kneel.
If you cross over the road, you will be on the grounds of St Augustine’s, and the graves there are just as interesting. Around the perimeter are old graves lying flat in the shadows of the church. At the back, behind the church, there is a family tomb that used to be surrounded by metal railings. The name engraved on the tomb is ‘Palmer’. However, there is one member of the family who isn’t buried there, and that is William Palmer.
William Palmer was a doctor who lived in Rugeley in the 1800s. He was a well-known serious gambler with huge debts, leading to more than a little speculation when he took out significant life insurance policies on family members (who would often die soon after). Despite these circumstances, Palmer was only ever convicted of one murder: that of John Parsons Cook. In November 1855, they attended the Shrewsbury horse racing; Cook won £3,000, while Palmer lost a considerable amount. They went to a local pub called The Raven to celebrate Cook’s win, and here Cook complained that his gin was making him feel ill, even going as far as to say to friends, ‘I believe that damn Palmer has been dosing me’. He continued feeling unwell for a few days.
They eventually returned to Rugeley, and after recovering, Cook joined Palmer on the 17th of November for a drink at The Talbot Inn where Palmer was staying, but he soon became ill again. On the 21st of November, Cook died in agony, screaming that he was suffocating. He had been poisoned by strychnine.
Palmer was arrested on the charge of murder and held at Stafford Gaol until his trial at The Old Bailey in London. There, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. On the 14th of June 1856, William Palmer was hanged in Stafford by the executioner, George Smith.
William Palmer’s body may never have made it to St Augustine’s graveyard, but the body of John Parsons Cook rests there, directly in front of the entrance to the church.
There is one more grave on the grounds that I must mention—that of Christina Collins.
In 1839, Christina Collins was travelling to meet her husband, Robert, in London, where he had been looking for work. To try and save money, instead of travelling via train, she travelled on a freight-carrying narrowboat, one manned by Captain James Owen, boatmen George Thomas and William Ellis, and cabin boy William Musson.
At 5 am on the 17th of June, Christina’s body was pulled from the canal in Rugeley, at Brindley Bank, by the aqueduct. There were no witnesses, and the cause of death was recorded as suffocation by drowning, but Owen, Thomas and Ellis were all found guilty of murder; Owen and Thomas were publicly hanged.
Christina’s gravestone is on St Augustine’s grounds, although her spirit has been said to haunt the area where she was found, at the notorious ‘Bloody Steps’.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little bit of history from my hometown.
Thanks for reading; take care, and I will see you soon!
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