In Search Of Sybil
By Anne P. Hewland from Northern Earth 67
I first came across the legend of lady Sybil, the witch of Bearnshaw Tower, in A Short History of Todmorden, by Joshua Holden (Manchester Univ. Press, 1912, p.116). Following this up in other publications1,2,3 there seemed to be so many specific details given dates, names, places - that I wondered whether there might be some grains of truth within the story.
Briefly, in 1632 the heiress of Bearnshaw Tower was inspired by her favourite walk to Eagle's Crag to sell her soul in exchange for supernatural powers. Lord William of Hapton Tower, a member of the Towneley family, wanted to marry her, but she repeatedly refused him, and he sought the aid of another local witch, Mother Helston, who told him to hunt in Cliviger Gorge on All Hallow's Eve. On doing so, he saw and followed a milk-white doe which eluded him until Mother Helston joined the chase in the shape of a hound, whereupon William was able to capture the doe with a silken noose. At Hapton Tower the next morning, the doe had regained the form of Sybil, who agreed to marry William, renouncing witchcraft; she kept her word for a year but then while in the shape of a white cat and with several other transformed witches, she was attacked by Robin, the servant of the miller, Giles Dickisson, who cut off her paw. In the morning, Sybil was lacking the hand bearing her costly signet ring: when the hand was taken to William, he seems , to have been more.concerned about the ring - but in spite of this off-putting reaction, Sybil was reconciled with her husband and was able to restore her hand magically. This took all her strength, however, and she died and was buried at the foot of Eagle Crag.
Geographically there are no problems with any of this. Eagle's Crag is near Cornholme above the A646 Burnley Todmorden road (SD 916 256). It does have an unmistakable resemblance to an eagle about to take flight and, to me, a powerful atmosphere. Bearnshaw Tower is on the should of the hillside above Cornholme, about half a mile's walk from the Crag, and in the seventeenth century was situated on a pack horse route to Todmorden and Rochdale which avoided the gorge below. The tower itself was situated at the end of the present farmhouse. but fell down in 1860 when digging took place beneath it for a legendary pot of gold4.
The site of Hapton Tower is on the lower slopes of Hameldon Hill, SW of Burnley, near Tower Brook (SD 808 298) and within sight of Pendle Hill.
Whitaker states that it had already been demolished in 1725 but had been a large square building with three cylindrical towers on one side5. The site is visible from almost a mile away after leaving the A679 once you know where to look - as a gap in a distant field wall, containing a single fence post and below the Hambledon Hill masts. Routes from the A679 go through the Enviro skip distribution site at Old Barn, which is very muddy; the path to the east, leaving the A646 by the side of the cemetery, may be better but I haven't tried it.
Cliviger Mill was situated near Cliviger Mill Bridge (SD 864 305), again off the A646, between Walk Mill and the Towneley Hall estate and was in existence for about six hundred years from at least 1270, with a mill pond and water wheel and later a smithy and five cottages. It can be found by taking the turn after the one signed Walk Mill, going towards Burnley, and then almost immediately going left down Park Road. The drained and overgrown mill pond is still visible, but the mill site has made way for modern houses and gardens.
Titus Thornber6 points out that there was a well defined system of green lanes in the area, the focus being the mill and mill bridge "to enable everyone in the township to carry produce to and from the corn mill". Thus an extension of Jack Hey Lane led from the mill to Bearnshaw Tower and another trade route ran through Hapton to Accrington, so the mill was nearly at the hub of the places mentioned in the Sybil story. A minor point is that cats are quite capable of travelling vast distances in a night - entire toms have been known to cover twenty miles, while from Hapton Tower to Cliviger Mill was less than five miles.
Unfortunately, at this point everything ceases to gel together. The Towneley family tree contains no William before 1714 (and he married a Cecilia Standish). Also, although one or two of the Towneleys were knighted, they were never ennobled, so 'Lord' William has to be a fiction even if he belonged to an obscure and minor branch.
Bearnshaw Tower was occupied by one Richard Lomax in 16267. The Lomaxes were not a noble family either and held the Tower as tenants. There are no entries for Lomax in the surviving early fragment of the Todmorden Parish registers 1617-1641, which was published with the Rochdale Parish Registers, although an unnamed wife of a Hugh Lomax died in 1625 and is entered under Rochdale. Winnie Marshall states that Bearnshaw Tower "will not date back beyond the middle of the seventeenth century" and that a stone on the farmhouse inscribed AL IL refers to the Lomax family, before the Tower was sold to the Towneleys. So it would seem that although there may be no clear evidence either way of a solitary heiress named Sybil living in the Tower, it seems unlikely. Also, the name Sybil itself gives rise to suspicion, being just too convenient for a witch or prophetess. Sibyl and Sibylla were common in England, however, from the twelfth century onwards, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names. I have not been able to find any record of who was living in Cliviger Mill at the time and Hapton Tower was inhabited by a Jane Assheton in 1632, the widow of Richard Towneley.
The earliest written source of the legend appears to be by John Roby. He had a fulsome style, embroidering his narrative with lengthy conversations and a vast amount of detail. However, he seems to have regarded himself as a genuine collector, weaving his 'glimmerings of truth' into tales of 'romantic interest' and using a mass of local tradition from the memories of the inhabitants. He does himself point out one of the anomalies in the tale, that of Jane Assheton living in Hapton, and is careful to state that Lord William is a 'connection' of the Towneley family8. However, he does make one glaring error in stating that Cliviger Mill is at the east side of Cliviger Gorge and Harland and Wilkinson are highly critical of his accuracy in another of his tales, that of Father Arrowsmith's Dead Man's Hand9. Wilkinson however did include the Sybil story in his own Ancient Mansions near Burnley, Their History and Owners10.
The legend itself is oddly structured in that it is two tales in one - the capture of the doe/woman with the silken noose and the injury to the cat occurring in the witch herself. The latter is a constantly recurring theme in legend and there are two other similar local versions - that of Betty of Halifax11 and the farmer's wife of Weir, near Bacup11. Interestingly, there are are also several similarities with the actual Lancashire witch trials of 1633-412, when seventeen women were arrested and tried on the flimsy evidence of a boy named Edmund Robinson. Four of the woman were even sent to London to be examined by Charles I and his physician; the case was eventually dismissed through lack of evidence. The boy's tale, seemingly invented to explain his failure to find his father's cattle, involved being abducted to join a witches' feast, and he then gained some notoriety as a local witch-finder, being displayed at church services by his father and uncle, where he sat on a stool looking for witches. He caused 'some disturbance' among the congregations in so doing, as might well be imagined! Later, he admitted that he had been suborned to give false evidence.
The date attributed to the Sybil legend is the most obvious similarity, but also one of the women arrested was called Frances Dickonson - a possible connection with the miller in Roby's tale, whose wife Goody turned to witchcraft through her desire for a child. There may even be a parallel between the name Robinson and Robin the miller's servant. Jessica Lofthouse points out that the name Robinson seems to crop up in witch trials - also at Pendle in 1612 and at Fewston in 1621.
But the only character who has crossed neatly from fact into legend would seem to be Loynd wife, one of Edmund Robinson's major suspects, who frightened him by sitting astride his father's roof and sticking thorns into pictures, and who is also now credited with watching for her victims from Eagle's Crag13.
So - grains and glimmerings of truth, yes. But Sybil herself? Apparently not.
Perhaps the Sybil legend grew from the fear and hysteria generated by the witch trials of the time, growing like a modern urban myth, Perhaps a legend becomes valid if it captures the imagination sufficiently to be retold, so that lady Sybil, documented or not, has created her own validity.
NOTES.
The locations can be found on the OS Outdoor Leisure Map:21 South:Pennines, but Hapton Tower is only marked on the green Pathfinder series #690 and is unfortunately in the NW corner where four maps meet.
Illustrations by Anne Hewland
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