Try and picture the scene. The young girl tied to the stake as the flames lap around her ankles. She screams and struggles but the chains hold her arms tight behind her. She looks down and sees the hem of her dress as it catches fire and she feels the heat of the flames as they begin to travel up her body. She screams again, this time more desperately. The only reply is the cheering and mocking of the baying crowd who watch her every agonised move.

She begins to choke as the smoke engulfs her and she prays that it will overcome her completely before the flames take hold of her body. As she coughs and gasps for breath she feels the flames dancing around her head and realises her hair has now caught fire. The flesh on her arms and legs begin to drip as the heat becomes more intense. As her dress finally explodes under the intense heat a bellowing smoke envelops her and she begins to choke more violently. In a few moments she is dead but for the mob the performance is only half way through.

Like zombies drawn to a blood feast they remain as the lifeless body of the young girl is ravished by the flames as her clothes are burnt away to reveal the innocent charred body of a young women. As her flesh melts and her bones become visible they bet on which arm or leg will be first to fall to the ground. Finally, when there is nothing left but a few charred bones and a skull hanging across the chains, they begin to disperse comparing the performance with those they have witnessed on previous visits to the pits.

Some hours later a couple of undertakers will arrive and begin the grim task of gathering up the charred bones. Together with anything else remaining of the young woman they will be buried under the ashes of the pit. A few days later it will all happen again, another crowd, another victim and another execution in the name of God. It may sound like the set of a Stephen King horror movie but it was, in fact, an old chalk pit within sight of the Cathedral of Norwich less than 500 years ago.

Bishopsbridge, which local lollards would cross to meet their death at the stake.

The name and the area of Lollards Pit can still be found by the Riverside in Norwich. Now it is nothing more than a car park for a local pub, but back in the 15th and 16 centuries it was the site of some of the most evil deeds ever committed within the city. There had always been a link between the pit and the Cathedral. The pit had been excavated when the Cathedral had been built and much of its chalk had been used in the construction.

So how did it ever come to this? A local crowd cheering and laughing as men and women, young and old, were chained to a wooden stake and set fire to. These barbaric displays were actually caused by education and fear. An education of the common person which had led them to start questioning the wisdom of Rome and the Papacy. And fear by the Catholic church that they had been found out.

In earlier times it had been all so simple, you went to church each week and you did as your local priest told you. His beliefs were your beliefs. However, in the early 15th century things were not so clear. The local Priest was being questioned and the all-powerful teachings from Rome were being called into doubt. The first translations into English of the Bible were becoming available and people who had been teaching themselves to read over the past few years were suddenly discovering that not everything they had been taught to accept by the church was exactly what is said in the Holy Book.

The church was worried. Seeing its power and, subsequently, its wealth being threatened it looked around anxiously for a way to retaliate. The obvious way of subduing a challenging congregation was the same as it had always been - fear!!

Their first port of call was to the King and in 1400 the Bishops took their fears to Henry IV and advised him that the church was under threat. The King knew that a strong church was vital for a successful monarch and he agreed to help the Bishops repress the apparent revolt. In 1401 the statute De Heretics Comburendo (The Necessity of Burning Heretics) was passed forbidding anyone to teach anything contrary to the Sacrament or the Authority of the church, "under penalty of being burnt before the people."

So there it was, in black and white, a licence to burn anyone who didn't agree with what the church preached - education to be punished with a terrible death.

LOCATION

THE MARTYRS OF THE PIT

This ghostly tale has kindly been provided by Ghostly Dave - visit his Norwich Ghost Walk website here.