Langley Heath

Mary Ashford was a 20-year-old from a large working family in the village northeast of Birmingham.

She lived with her uncle John Coleman at his farm in Langley Heath and regularly walked into Birmingham to sell produce, so traveling several miles on foot would have been a normal part of her everyday life.

On Monday, May 26, 1817, Mary had plans that had nothing to do with work.

It was Went Monday, part of the Whitsuntide holiday, when fairs, dances, and other celebrations were common, and a dance was being held that evening at Tyburn House, a coaching inn outside Birmingham.

Later evidence doesn't fit that account.

but we can't know why Mary said what she said.

She then changed back into the pink dress she had worn the previous day, gathered her white clothing and new shoes from the dance, and set off towards Langley Heath, but Mary would never arrive.

Not long after she left Hannah's cottage, people began finding pieces of her clothing along the road.