Shropshire Routes to Roots

3b. Murderous Mapp: Modern version of the evidence

The Day after the Murder
Monday, 23rd December, 1867

1. The next day, John Mapp was spreading manure on some fields down Long Lane. A boy called Aston was working with him.
2. Aston discovered a bloodstained straw hat in a holly bush by the road. He showed it to Mapp. Mapp looked scared, and told Aston to bury the hat. Aston refused, and left the hat by the gate.
3. Later that day, Mary Hartshorn came along to where Aston and Mapp were working. She saw the bloodstained straw hat. She recognised that it was the same as the one Catherine Lewis had worn the night before.
4. Mary Hartshorn picked up the hat, and took it back to Edward Lewis, Catherine Lewis's father.
5. Edward Lewis set out to look for his daughter. He went to the holly bush where the hat had been found. After searching through the fields nearby, he found a small hut. Inside the hut was the body of his daughter!
6. Mapp had been spreading manure on the areas near where the hat was found and near where the body was found.

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