Just around the corner from the Adam & Eve along what is now part of Bishopsgate is a wall standing in front of the local magistrates courts. In the middle 1800s there was a row of small terraced houses here. It was known as Tabernacle Street and on Sunday, June 15 1851 one of the houses was shielding a terrible secret . . .

The house was owned by William Sheward who lived with his wife Martha. William Sheward was 35 years old whilst Martha was 54 and was totally dislikable and drove her husband to drink. Following an argument over money William Sheward had gone to the bathroom where he kept his cut-throat razor. Creeping up behind Martha he slit her throat from ear to ear allowing her dead body to fall to the bedroom floor.

Looking towards Bishopsgate, which used to be Tabernacle Street.

William Sheward now had a dead body to get rid of and he quickly thought of a way to make disposal a little easier. Sheward decided it would be easier to get rid of the body if it was smaller and he began the task of cutting it into pieces.

The head was taken off first, then the hands, the feet, the arms and the legs, all cut into neat little pieces. It took him four nights to complete his task. He also believed the body would be easier to dispose of if it was softer and so he began the grisly task of boiling it in a saucepan over the open fire in the living room. It took him a further three nights to complete his operation by which time, he was having to throw lavender leaves on the fire to get rid of the awful stench of boiled flesh and bones.

Having reduced the body to a heap of small, soft pieces, Sheward decided it was time to get rid of the evidence and he began a nightly ritual so macabre it defies belief. For the next week William Sheward wandered round the streets of Norwich with his bucket, the bucket was covered by a tea towel and underneath the tea towel were bits and pieces of Martha. As he wandered the streets he threw bits of the body out wherever he happened to be.

William told friends that Martha had left him, which did not surprise them because she had made it known that she intended doing just that. It was assumed that she had returned to London, where she had lived before. A very clumsy killing had turned out to be the "perfect crime". With nothing to connect him to the crime it seemed that William Sheward would get away with his foul deed.

Not too surprisingly parts began to turn up, first of all a hand, then a foot, piece of an arm and a leg. So many pieces turned up that the police thought it was a practical joke by local medical students but they soon realised they had enough pieces of the same body to constitute a murder. Suspicion fell on William when he began to frequent Deepdene Lane, poking away at the undergrowth with his stick, and a policeman began to get suspicious. He discovered that Martha was missing and decided there was a possibility that she had been killed by her husband and buried in the undergrowth of Deepdene Lane. He searched the area with his dog and his efforts were rewarded when he unearthed a human hand.

The only piece which didn't turn up was the head and so they had no way of identifying the body. Martha Sheward was not reported missing and the police surgeons had estimated the age of the body to be in its late teens or early twenties. This discovery started a massive police search of the area and further parts of a human body were discovered and the remains were sent into Norwich for examination.

The Key and Castle Pub on Oak Street.

The surgeon deduced that the remains were those of a woman aged about 25 -30, with light-brown hair and weighing eight stone. Martha had been 56 when she died, had black hair and weighed at least two stones more, and this misleading medical evidence gave William Sheward a reprieve. He began to prosper and bought several shops and properties, but he was convinced that Martha was with him all the time and he was certain that the police knew that he had killed his wife but could not arrest him for lack of evidence.

By 1868 William Sheward was living above the Key and Castle Public House at St Martin at Oak, Norwich, with his second wife. In December, 1868, Mrs Sheward suggested that it would do them both a lot of good if they were to go to London for a few days. It was not until they had reached the hotel where they were to stay that William began to feel very uneasy. He could not tell his wife that they were staying in the same square where he had met Martha 30 years previously. New Year's Eve saw him wandering the streets of South London, racked with guilt and convinced he was being followed by the ghost of his dead wife.

Finally on Friday, January 1 1869 he walked into a police station in Walworth where Insp James Davies had come on duty an hour earlier. Davies recalled that Sheward had approached the desk and stated he wished to make a charge against himself. "What is it?" Davies had asked, "for the wilful murder of my first wife in Norwich," replied Sheward. Over the next hour or so he made a full confession but refused to go into great detail as to what he had done as it was "too terrible." A few days later Sheward was brought back to Norwich where he was taken straight to the local gaol and charged with murder.

By the time of his trial in March 1869 Sheward had withdrawn his confession claiming that he had been depressed and drunk when he made it. He claimed his wife had emigrated to Australia with another man years earlier and he hadn't seen her since. The evidence against Sheward was very poor, apart from his admission there was nothing to tie him to the body parts found around the city. Furthermore his wife had been aged 54 whilst the police surgeons had suggested that the victim was much younger. It was suggested by his defence that his original confession could have been provided by anyone who had read of the case in the local press.

The judge also reminded the jury that no "new" information had been offered by Sheward and he pointed out that if the defendant was entitled to be believed when he made the confession then he was just as entitled to be believed now when he withdrew it. However, he told them they had to ask themselves why anyone should have made up such a story if it was untrue. They should also consider the fact that all the known evidence fitted comfortably with the confession and that although Sheward had pleaded not guilty he had refused to give any evidence during the trial.

The jury retired at five past three and returned with a verdict just an hour and a quarter later. Perhaps it was the original statement that had swayed them, or the fact that Sheward had refused to give evidence. Whatever it was, when the clerk asked them for their verdict the foreman replied: "The jury find him guilty." Sheward was then asked if he had anything to say. The prisoner replied: "I have nothing to say." The judge then passed sentence, that Sheward should be "taken to a place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until your body be dead."

When Sheward arrived back at the city gaol to await execution, acute rheumatism in his ankles meant he was allowed to stay in the prison infirmary and that he would be supported by warders wherever he went. Any doubts over the guilty verdict were quashed once and for all when Sheward asked to see the prison governor on the afternoon of April 15. At the meeting Sheward made a confession describing in great detail all that he had done. He explained that he had argued with his wife over money which he had lent to his employer and when she threatened to go and reclaim it he was forced to stop her. He described how he had slit her throat, dismembered and boiled her body and scattered it around the streets of Norwich.

As Sheward awaited his date of execution the rheumatism in his ankles grew worse causing him to be carried around the infirmary for most of the time. On the evening before the set date of execution he wrote a letter to his wife in which he apologised and asked for forgiveness.

The following morning, as the bells of St Peter Mancroft and St Giles joined those of the prison to toll the death strokes, Sheward, the two warders and the chaplain made their way to the iron gate between the governor's house and the gaol. Here they were met by the under sheriff and local surgeon. At this point Sheward became unable to walk and had to be carried to the pinioning room.

Supported by the warders Sheward was led to the scaffold. Once upon the scaffold, the hangman quickly fixed the cap and rope whilst Sheward prayed. The hangman then withdrew the bolt and Sheward fell. A brief struggle brought life to an end.

William Sheward was only the second person to be hanged at the prison, he would be the last. Furthermore he was the first person to be executed in Norwich in private. A recent Home Office Bill had banned public executions following unruly and riotous behaviour which now generally attended these events. Exactly one hour later as the bells struck nine o'clock, Sheward's body was cut down. After being buried within the grounds of the gaol a brick was marked with his initial, W S and placed within the prison wall.

At last, some 18 years after the event, the mystery of the unknown body, together with Sheward himself, could be laid to rest. The only remaining mystery was what had happened to Martha Sheward's head. Sheward had admitted to severing it from the body and boiling it in a saucepan but refused to tell what had happened to it afterwards. Who knows, all that cutting and boiling must have been hard work and, no doubt, Sheward must have built up quite an appetite by the end of it!

LOCATION - TABERNACLE STREET

LOCATION - THE KEY AND CASTLE PUB

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