The Meon Hill Murder, 1945: Unsolved Crime in Witch Country

In the closing months of the Second World War, an old hedger was found bludgeoned and hacked to death in a Warwickshire field. The local CID, Scotland Yard, and hundreds of people were interviewed, but nobody was talking. Rumors persisted that Meon Hill was the center of a witches' coven and that old Charlie Walton was a witch himself. This is the first book to get past the nonsense and access original police files that say nothing about witchcraft. It analyzes the facts from the time and removes the ever-more ludicrous layers of fiction, getting as near to solving the mystery as we are ever likely to.

Format: Hardback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 08 August 2023
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd

In the closing months of the Second World War, an old hedger was found bludgeoned and hacked to death in a Warwickshire field. His name was Charles Walton, and the place was the little village of Lower Quinton, under the shadow of Meon Hill. They called in the local CID; they called in Scotland Yard; they interviewed hundreds of people; they asked thousands of questions. But somebody wasn't talking. The whole village was silent, as if someone had drawn down a blind. After the case was scaled down, the rumors remained. Was Meon Hill the center of a witches' coven? And was old Charlie Walton, with his ability to talk to birds and toads and his magic watch, a witch himself? For eighty years, the supernatural has hovered over the murder of Charles Walton, with vague, haunted memories of secret rites and black dogs. Even the dead man's grave has vanished. Rumor has been piled on innuendo, adding to the excesses of writers determined to make a supernatural mystery out of a very local tragedy, until the dead man himself has disappeared into a morass of hocus pocus. This is the first book to get past the nonsense, accessing original police files that say precisely nothing about witchcraft. Analysing the facts from the time and removing the ever-more ludicrous layers of fiction, it gets as near to solving the mystery as we are ever likely to.

In the closing months of the Second World War, an old hedger was found bludgeoned and hacked to death in a Warwickshire field. His name was Charles Walton, and the place was the little village of Lower Quinton, under the shadow of Meon Hill. They called in the local CID; they called in Scotland Yard; they interviewed hundreds of people; they asked thousands of questions. But somebody wasn't talking. The whole village was silent, as if someone had drawn down a blind. After the case was scaled down, the rumors remained. Was Meon Hill the center of a witches' coven? And was old Charlie Walton, with his ability to talk to birds and toads and his magic watch, a witch himself? For eighty years, the supernatural has hovered over the murder of Charles Walton, with vague, haunted memories of secret rites and black dogs. Even the dead man's grave has vanished. Rumor has been piled on innuendo, adding to the excesses of writers determined to make a supernatural mystery out of a very local tragedy, until the dead man himself has disappeared into a morass of hocus pocus. This is the first book to get past the nonsense, accessing original police files that say precisely nothing about witchcraft. Analysing the facts from the time and removing the ever-more ludicrous layers of fiction, it gets as near to solving the mystery as we are ever likely to.

Weight: 460g
Dimension: 164 x 241 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399066600