Black Magic
The murder victim at the heart of this gruesome Black Magic story was 74 year-old Charles Walton, a farm labourer who had lived in the village of Lower Quinton all his life and shared a rented cottage opposite the village church with his niece, Edie. Although an unusual character, Charles was well liked in the village. But I was also told that some villagers believed he must be involved with witchcraft because of his strange knowledge and abilities - it was claimed birds would flock to be fed from his hand and he had the ability to tame wild dogs with his voice -. On 14 February 1945, Charles was tending hedges on Hillground, a field at the bottom of the Meon Hill, with a pitch fork and a trouncing hook. A few hours later he was found dead, his trouncing hook (a tool used for hedging) embedded in his throat, his body was pinned to the earth with his own pitch fork and a large cross carved into his chest. During the investigation of the murder the police found a book titled The book, Folklore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespeareland, written by J. Harvey Bloom, in 1929. The book recorded the case of another Charles Walton who had died 60 years earlier, in 1885, after – so it was claimed - seeing a foreboding ghost. The crime, has never been solved. The two young men I photographed performing some kind of macabre ceremony in a Sussex cellar claimed to be good warlocks who only used their powers for the benefit of their fellow.
15 Photos
Witches Coven - South London 1963
7 Photos
