Belchamp Walter's recent history
This page needs some editing
Research on this website relating to the village of Belchamp Walter have been taken from news items and the accounts of those that live or have lived in the community.
Word of mouth
These are accounts that have been recorded from conversations with local residents. There is a lot of scope here and there are many in the Belchamp Walter community that can add to this.
Some of the conversations that I have had are those relating to the remains of footings of buildings that were burnt as a consequence of the Black Death and the grave robbings from cemeteries in the area.
The author suspects that the stories relating to grave robbing in Belchamp Walter are a confusion with the events reported from Foxearth. The remains of the body of the late Samuel Vial, Esq. being exhumed.
After spending some time in researching those that are buried in the churchyards of St. Mary, Belchamp Walter church, I was reminded of a story that I had related to me by one of the current residents of the village. This story related to "Grave Robbers" and whether they had dug up graves in our churchyard.
It is my belief that this is not true and the origin of this story need to be made clear. I can find no evidence that there were any such activities at Belchamp Walter or in any of the surrounding villages. While there may have been desecration of grave yards in some parts of the country it is my belief that this is more likely to be at large centers of population where there was a shortage of cadavers for medical experimentation.
I have quoted the article from the Foxearth and District Local History Society's website and their article "Sacrilege and Body-stealing". If you want to read the complete article I urge you to visit their website.
Foxearth & District Local History Society
Sacrilege and Body-stealing
The note below is from the introduction of the story about the Body-stealing from an article publishd in the Suffolk Free Press in 1864.
The article: