Ellen Strange Memorial
The legend of Ellen Strange, a young woman brutally murdered on the moors between Holcombe and Helmshore, has
always intrigued historians. The scene of her death is marked by a cairn and a memorial stone… but these landmarks
do not represent a reliable picture of what happened on that cold, winter’s night.
One account suggests that the cairn lay elsewhere on the moor and was moved to its
present location by a group of schoolboys just before the First World War. And the
memorial stone, supposedly representing the tragic Ellen, is thought by some to be an
ancient waymarker showing the face of Mary and the baby Jesus.
For some 200 years, a lack of records allowed speculation and fanciful theories to
flourish – until research by the Helmshore Local History Society provided the definitive
account.
THE MYTH:
The word-of-mouth story of Ellen blamed a lover for her murder. She was said to have
been attacked, raped and killed at the site of the cairn as she made her way home near
Bolton from Haslingden Fair. This legend has its roots in a poem written in 1872 by John
Fawcett Skelton, a Bolton town councillor and a man of “literary and poetic turn”. His
verse was written almost 100 years after the killing and describes how Ellen became besotted by a ‘packman’ or
‘Scotchman’ as peddlers were known.
They had trysts on the moor, according to the poem, and Ellen was usually accompanied by a male friend who shared
the secret and guarded her. But she and her lover were alone on the night she died in what Skelton describes as an
‘embrace of blood’.
In the fanciful rhetoric of the time, the murderer is said to have made a pact with the devil to escape. Henry
Stephenson, headmaster of a local church school, wrote in his diary in 1878 that so rapid was his speed that "his clogs
struck fire every step he took.” Further accounts recorded that the killer was caught, confessed his sins, was tried and
hanged at Lancaster Assizes and his body placed in a gibbet on Bull Hill.
THE TRUTH:
The Helmshore historians were prompted to their investigations by a ceremony at the
cairn in 1978 performed by artist and sculptor Bob Frith. He claimed to have saved the
cairn and the story from oblivion and led a theatre company’s “exorcism” of the horror
of Ellen’s death. The ceremony also involved the placing of the stone column, carved
with the representation of Ellen Strange, which is still there.
Research of old records suggested that Ellen Strange was murdered between midnight
and one o’clock on January 26, 1761. Her death was described in detail at an inquest
two days later.
She was however called Ellen Broadley and had been married to John Broadley, a
labourer from Clayton-le-Moors, for some ten years but kept her maiden name, as was
commonplace in East Lancashire at the time. The couple were paupers and travelled in
search of work. There is also evidence that their relationship endured bouts of heavy
drinking and violence.
One theory is that they quarrelled the night before the murder and Ellen may have been
trying to make her way to the Strange family home at Ash Farm, near Hawkshaw. Under a full moon, Broadley
supposedly pursued and murdered her. He was tried at Lancaster Assizes but acquitted through lack of eye witnesses
to the killing.
The jury may have spared him from the gallows because he had reported finding Ellen’s body… but was this merely a
ploy to divert suspicion from himself? Broadley was freed and died seven years later.
The full account of the Helmshore Local History Society’s research appears in John Simpson’s excellent book Ellen
Strange, a Moorland Mystery Explained, first published in 1989
always intrigued historians. The scene of her death is marked by a cairn and a memorial stone… but these landmarks
do not represent a reliable picture of what happened on that cold, winter’s night.
One account suggests that the cairn lay elsewhere on the moor and was moved to its
present location by a group of schoolboys just before the First World War. And the
memorial stone, supposedly representing the tragic Ellen, is thought by some to be an
ancient waymarker showing the face of Mary and the baby Jesus.
For some 200 years, a lack of records allowed speculation and fanciful theories to
flourish – until research by the Helmshore Local History Society provided the definitive
account.
THE MYTH:
The word-of-mouth story of Ellen blamed a lover for her murder. She was said to have
been attacked, raped and killed at the site of the cairn as she made her way home near
Bolton from Haslingden Fair. This legend has its roots in a poem written in 1872 by John
Fawcett Skelton, a Bolton town councillor and a man of “literary and poetic turn”. His
verse was written almost 100 years after the killing and describes how Ellen became besotted by a ‘packman’ or
‘Scotchman’ as peddlers were known.
They had trysts on the moor, according to the poem, and Ellen was usually accompanied by a male friend who shared
the secret and guarded her. But she and her lover were alone on the night she died in what Skelton describes as an
‘embrace of blood’.
In the fanciful rhetoric of the time, the murderer is said to have made a pact with the devil to escape. Henry
Stephenson, headmaster of a local church school, wrote in his diary in 1878 that so rapid was his speed that "his clogs
struck fire every step he took.” Further accounts recorded that the killer was caught, confessed his sins, was tried and
hanged at Lancaster Assizes and his body placed in a gibbet on Bull Hill.
THE TRUTH:
The Helmshore historians were prompted to their investigations by a ceremony at the
cairn in 1978 performed by artist and sculptor Bob Frith. He claimed to have saved the
cairn and the story from oblivion and led a theatre company’s “exorcism” of the horror
of Ellen’s death. The ceremony also involved the placing of the stone column, carved
with the representation of Ellen Strange, which is still there.
Research of old records suggested that Ellen Strange was murdered between midnight
and one o’clock on January 26, 1761. Her death was described in detail at an inquest
two days later.
She was however called Ellen Broadley and had been married to John Broadley, a
labourer from Clayton-le-Moors, for some ten years but kept her maiden name, as was
commonplace in East Lancashire at the time. The couple were paupers and travelled in
search of work. There is also evidence that their relationship endured bouts of heavy
drinking and violence.
One theory is that they quarrelled the night before the murder and Ellen may have been
trying to make her way to the Strange family home at Ash Farm, near Hawkshaw. Under a full moon, Broadley
supposedly pursued and murdered her. He was tried at Lancaster Assizes but acquitted through lack of eye witnesses
to the killing.
The jury may have spared him from the gallows because he had reported finding Ellen’s body… but was this merely a
ploy to divert suspicion from himself? Broadley was freed and died seven years later.
The full account of the Helmshore Local History Society’s research appears in John Simpson’s excellent book Ellen
Strange, a Moorland Mystery Explained, first published in 1989
