Soulton Court’s Moot Hall (a room which might be called ‘The Justice Room’ at other manors) is an important surviving Court Room from the second half of the seventeenth centaury, which means trials were conducted in this room.
The Moot Hall (or Justice Room) in Soulton Court
This Halloween, while attention is being paid to witches, we would like to highlight the story of an attempted to be set in motion a witch trail at Soulton, in the time of Thomas Hill (High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1680).
It was from the Sir Rowland Hill Chair that Thomas Hill, sitting as a justice, through-out one of the last witch trials in England, ending that cruel and persecutory period of legal history. There were very few actual witch trials in Shropshire during their height, and it was uncommon for women to be put on trial in comparison to other parts of the country.
Old Sir Rowland Hill’s Chair of Estate.
Amid the celebrations and the fun of this modern festival it is fitting to find a moment to reflect on the wrongness of the witch trials, and the warning they represent. They were a dark chapter in English history, fuelled by fear, superstition, and prejudice. Marginalized groups bore the brunt of this suffering: women and those defying social norms, the poor, mentally ill, and outsiders like immigrants or those with alternative medicine practices.
The Upper Hall in Tretower Court, very like the Moot Hall in Soulton Hall
The story is well-know, and was documented in Salopian Shreds and Patches, published 1881 as follows (there are inaccuracies in this account but this is how that text sets it out there):
About fifty years ago, an unlucky boy, servant to Thomas Newns, who lived where Brown does now, took into his head to hide his master’s plough irons, and to give out that they were conveyed away by witchcraft. The credulity of the people and the success he at first met with, encouraged him to attempt greater wickedness, even to set the house on fire. Mr. Hughes, then curate of Wem, being desired to pray in the family that was disturbed. After be had done his office he called for his horse, whereupon the boy came running to acquaint them that the parson’s saddle was gone. Mr. Hughes was positive that the witch had no power over it, because he had honestly paid for it, and therefore caused a diligent search to be made for the saddle, which was found secreted in the hay-loft. This caused the boy to be very much suspected. He was taken before Mr. Hill, of Soulton, and by the Justice and Clergy of Wem brought to a full confession.
