Manningtree

And that's an idea that they take very seriously indeed.

And he moved to Manningtree in the early 1640s.

Can you give us an idea of what the area was like?

So yeah, so his father dies relatively young.

His mother remarries a clergyman in Essex.

And so he moves over the River Stour to Manningtree.

Manningtree is a small decaying port.

That means it's gradually getting silted up.

John Stern is his older puritanical friend.

They start off in the little town of Manningtree in Essex.

There were already some witchcraft accusations going on there and in the surrounding communities.

They put together a case against the Manningtree witches.

Then, because both of them are from Suffolk, they move across the river going north into Suffolk.

They split up and they go to separate communities to see if they can find more witches there because they've decided, deluding themselves, the world is full of witches and somebody ought to go and find them.

Yeah.

So he dies in 1647.

Hopkins' father, uncle and brother were all Puritan preachers, so he was raised with a hell of a lot of fire and brimstone.

And when his father died, Hopkins moved to Manningtree, Essex, and, very unlike a Puritan, bought a pub.

When a landowner

called Sir Harbottle Grimstone.

If you give yourself a nickname, it is not cool.

Like L. Ron Hubbard calling himself Flash, it just makes you look lame.

And soon, 23 women in the town of Manningtree had been arrested for witchcraft.

They all confessed, 18 of them were hanged, and four more died in jail.

We got back to our hotel that we were going to, which was in Colchester, which will be sort of important a little bit later, just sort of how close to the location that we were investigating.

uh was because colchester kind of comes into this sort of like whole story with the witch finder as well um and then i would say it was only about 10 minutes i think it was like nine or ten minute drive from our hotel in colchester to manning tree which is kind of where we sort of started the the evening so i'm going to give you like a bit of a run through of sort of like the the lore behind all of this so um the ghost hunt that we did We started off at the Red Lion Pub in Manningtree, just as kind of the meet-up place.

We then drove to a place called Mistley Towers, and from there we kind of walked down the dockside to the Thorn Inn, or the Mistley Thorn, I think it's called now.

We then drove down into Mistley a little bit further to a woodland, behind a big park field sort of thing, there's a woodland there.

He was born in Great Wenham in Suffolk.

His father was a Puritan vicar.

So this wasn't very far away from Manningtree at all.

He kind of lived, born, lived, died in that place.

[laughs]

[laughs] Um, have you read much about, uh, the Manningtree witches-

Oh

...

Yes

...

The Manningtree Witches.

It's amazing.

Yeah

... sessions, and you think, "Oh my God, you know, they're amazing, and they live in Manningtree or somewhere."

Mm-hmm.

And you think, "Well, how do I not know these people?"

He was the son of James Hopkins, minister of Wenham in Suffolk.

He was a lawyer of but little note at Ipswich, thence removing to Manningtree.

Whether he may have been the Matthew Hopkins of Southwark who complained in 1644 of inability to pay the taxes is more than doubtful, but there is reason enough to believe that he found the law no very remunerative profession.

He was ready for some new venture, and an accidental circumstance in Manningtree turned him into a wholly new field of endeavor.

He assumed the role of a witch-finder, and is said to have taken the title of witch-finder general.

He had made little or no preparation for the work that now came to his hand.

King James's famous demonology he was familiar with, but he may have studied it after his first experiences at Manningtree.

It seems somewhat probable, too, that he had read, and indeed been much influenced by, the account of the Lancashire witches of 1612, as well as by Richard Bernard's advice to grand jurymen.

We have always talked about these players in the squad who know the culture and sort of when the new players come in, sort of demand the standards and the culture and he, he's one of them.

Um, I watched the interview with him, um, walking alongside the river in Manningtree I think it was, and it's clear that he has fallen in love with Suffolk like many other players do when they come and join Ipswich.

Um, he's had such a strange Ipswich career, hasn't he? He has never let us down, no matter when he's played.

I can think of very few mistakes that he's made that have, have led to goals.

And then probably going into this one, we, we sign not one, but two new goalkeepers, and you're thinking, "Oh, Walton stays." I mean, he might, might be a third choice, but, but then, yeah, he's, he's popped up once again, and like you say, doesn't let us down.

Um, and yeah, rewarded with this, with this deal, um, that keeps him, keeps him at the club and keeps him in the area.

I will, will just point out, Henry, that Manningtree is technically Essex-

Yeah

We've got the names of over 500.

John Mocking the wine merchant was there, along with the Manningtree men, John Sumner and Robert Pierce.

There were also lowlifes like Richard Scott, a street con man who'd scratched a living cheating gullible visitors to the capital with loaded dice.

John and Joan Fera from Rochester liberated a chest containing 1,000 pounds, rowed it across the river to Southwark, and shared it out with their mates.

John Ball suffered the full torture of being hung, drawn, and quartered some months later.

He died still proclaiming his simple faith.

Many wealthier rebels like John Mocking the wine dealer, Thomas Raven the MP, and the men from Manningtree were pardoned and lived out lives of respectability.

Unlike Thomas Wootton the army deserter, he denied his part in the revolt and staked his life on a trial by combat.

John Mocking, the wine merchant, was there.

Along with the Manningtree men, John Sumner and Robert Pearce.

There were also lowlifes like Richard Scott, a street con man who'd scratched a living cheating gullible visitors to the capital with loaded dice.

John and Joan Ferrer from Rochester liberated a chest containing a thousand pounds, rode it across the river to Southwark and shared it out with their mates.

John Ball suffered the full torture of being hung, drawn, and quartered some months later.

He died still proclaiming his simple faith.

Many wealthier rebels like John Mocking, the wine dealer, Thomas Raven, the MP, and the men from Manningtree were pardoned and lived out lives of respectability.

Unlike Thomas Wotton, the army deserter, he denied his part in the revolt and staked his life on a trial by combat.