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Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier. Saturday 15 May 1943.
Page 4 Column 4
LOCAL NOTES & QUERIES
Every reader of this paper who in in any way Interested in Local Notes and Queries is invited to assist us by contributing to this column.
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REPLIES TO QUERIES
HUMAN SKIN ON CHURCH DOORS
3899. - HUMAN SKIN ON CHURCH DOORS. - Amongst other places in England where the church doors have been overlaid with human hide are Hadstock, Copford, East Thurrock, and Castle Hedingham, all in Essex, the cathedrals of Rochester and Worcester, and Westminster Abbey. Legend invariably associates the skin with a Dane and the punishment with a robbery of the church, and the doors so covered where commonly called “Dane's Doors.” One of the best examples of “Dane's skin” from Copford is to be seen in the Museum at Taunton Castle. I have not been able to discover any records or traditions of human skin being nailed to church doors in Somerset, although it is quite possible there may have been cases in this county. There is a tradition at Piddletrenthide, Dorset, that there was formerly nailed to the west door of the church there a piece of human skin which was said to have been that of a raiding Dane who came up the river bank from Wareham. I believe that pieces of human skin may still be seen on the north door of the Parish Church of Pembridge, Herefordshire, said to be that of a Dane. There are records and traditions of a number of cases in which the skins of murderers who were hanged in the early part of the last century were tanned and used to bind books or made into gloves or shoes. In the year 1816 the Taunton Courier printed a protest “in reprobation of the Act that the skin of the unfortunate wretch who lately paid the forfeit of his life to the offended laws of his county (MARSH, the murderer) was brought into Taunton for the purpose of being tanned.” But notwithstanding this protest the same thing was still being done more than a dozen years later. In the Taunton Museum there was for many years – and probably still is – a bust of a butler named Abraham REED who was hanged at Ilchester on 31st August, 1829, for the murder of his mistress. Round the neck of the bust was suspended a piece of leather made from the skin of the murderer. In another room was a much larger piece of leather of considerable thickness, bearing a label with the words:- “Piece of human skin, tanned into leather. From the body of a man hanged at Ilchester. Presented by Mr. T. H. BARTLETT, 34, East Reach.” At the public library at Bury St. Edmunds is exhibited a book bound with a tanned piece of the skin or Corder, the murderer, John HORWOOD was hanged at Bristol on the 13th April, 1821, for the murder of his sweetheart. A book relating to the tragedy was compiled by Mr. SMITH, senior surgeon of the Royal Infirmary, Bristol, and had on its back a label made from the tanned skin of the murderer. Old people living at Broomfield used to tell of a man who formerly lived in that neighbourhood who burnt his wife to death by tying her up in the house and piling wood around her, which he set alight. He was hanged for this crime, but it is said that public feeling was so strong against him for the particularly cruel nature of the murder that it was ordered that after his death his skin should be tanned and made into gloves. - W.
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<NOTES: Abraham REED son of Betty REED, married Mary BREWER>