East Mersea
| East Mersea | |
| Essex | |
|---|---|
 St Edmund's church, East Mersea | |
| Location | |
| Island: | Mersea Island |
| Grid reference: | TM060150 |
| Location: | 51°47’45"N, 0°59’9"E |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Colchester |
| Postcode: | CO5 8 |
| Dialling code: | 01206 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Colchester |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
North Essex |
East Mersea is a scattered village on Mersea Island on the Essex coast. The island has one village and one town, the town being West Mersea. The island is joined to the mainland by a causeway which is dry only at low tide.
Parish church
The parish church is St Edmund's.
Grave of Sarah Wrench
The grave of Sarah Wrench (1833-1848), by the north wall of the chancel at St. Edmund's Church in East Mersea is unusual for an Essex grave because it is covered by a mortsafe,[1] a protective cage used at the time more usually in Edinburgh to protect corpses from graverobbers; there was a hunger for fresh corpses amongst the medical schools of that city in those days.
Richard Jones, in Myths of Britain and Ireland, refers to popular speculation that Sarah Wrench was a witch, and that the cage was designed to keep her from escaping her grave after death,[2] though Victorian Essex was not known for witches or witch trials any more than for grave-robbers.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about East Mersea) |
References
- ↑ James Bettley, Nikolaus Pevsner, David Andrews, Nigel Brown, James Kemble, Essex: The Buildings of England (Yale University Press, 2007; ISBN 0-300-11614-4, ISBN 978-0-300-11614-4)
- ↑ Jones, Richard. Myths of Britain and Ireland. New Holland Publishers: London, UK, 2003
