Great Paxton church (earliest known photo)

Holy Trinity, Great Paxton

History of Holy Trinity

Listed Building:

c.1050 minster church originally of cruciform plan with tower over crossing. In late C13 the chancel was rebuilt and in C14 the West tower added. The North and South aisles were rebuilt in C15. The South porch is C14. The nave and crossing are important examples of late Saxon work. Historic England

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One of only three surviving aisled Saxon churches in England.

https://greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/great_paxton.html

https://greatpaxtonhistory.weebly.com/great-paxton-church.html

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1808 Ann Izzard was attacked after being accused of being a witch. A cart had overturned on its way back from St Neots marker and the woman driver blamed Ann. On 8th May she was dragged from her bed by locals and assaulted. She eventually fled to the home of Rev. Nicholson. Also some who assaulted her were found guilty, the attacks did not stop and Ann Izzard was forced to go and live in St Neots.

Oracle and the Daily Advertiser, 24 November 1808

CHARGE OF WITCHCRAFT.

It was devoutly to be wished that all belief in witchcraft had been long exploded; but the following circumstance, coupled as it is with the utmost barbarity, will prove that it exists not more than 60 miles from the metropolis. Ann Izzard, an elderly dame, of Great Paxton, in Huntingdonshire, was lately accused by her neighbours of having bewitched three persons, of the names of Alice Brown, Fanny Amey, and Mary Fox. The supposition was so strongly confirmed by the overturning of a cart, drawn by a restive horse, the property of a grocer in the village, that her neighbours resolved, without delay, to inflict upon her the summary punishment they thought she so justly merited. The cottage in which Ann lived with her husband, Wright Izzard, is at some distance from the body of the village of Paxton. Thither they marched in the silence of night, and having reached the door of the poor man’s house, they broke it open, and inhumanely dragged his wife out of bed, and threw her naked into the yard; where her arms were torn with pins—her head dashed against the large stone of the causeway—and her face, stomach, and breast severely bruised with a thick stick, that served as a bar to the house. In about five days after this, finding the old lady still alive, they paid her a second visit, and treated her with the same cruelty as before. Learning that she was not dead the next morning, they resolved to see whether she could not be drowned at night; but fortunately for all parties, this experiment was frustrated by the timely removal of the poor object to a neighbouring village, where, under the protection of a worthy clergyman, she now lives free from the farther persecution of her barbarous and ignorant neighbours.