Memorial, c1735 Death in the Snow, Rainow, Cheshire.
Location
On Ewrin Lane, Nab End, Rainow, Cheshire,
about two hundred metres uphill from the junction with Hooleyhey Lane.
Description
A stone tablet,
half hidden in long grass at the top of a roadside embankment.
It marks the spot where John Turner was found dead one winter in the mid eighteenth century.
Inscription
HERE JOHN TUR
NER WAS CAST
AWAY IN A HEAVY
SNOW STORM IN
THE NIGHT IN OR
ABOUT THE YEAR
1755
------------
THE PRINT OF A
WOMANS SHOE WAS
FOUND BY HIS SIDE
IN THE SNOW WERE
HE LAY DEAD
H
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Notes
The inscription gives the year as 1755 which is now thought to be incorrect.
The discrepancy may have occured when the original stone was replaced and the inscription copied.
The memorial is thought to refer to John Turner of Saltersford Hall,
who ran a team of pack horses.
On Christmas Eve 1735 he was caught in a snowstorm when returning from Bollington.
Comment
Centuries later, one can only speculate on the significance of the female footprint.
In fact John was only half a mile from home.
Perhaps the pack horses found their own way home, and his wife came searching and found him.
"Drunk again!
Sleep there!"
Speculation, but a good story, it could be true.
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The sunken Ewrin Lane winding its way downhill
from Buxter Stoops Farm to Nab End,
between fields of recently cut hay, and sheep.
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Carl's Cam