Images of Maria Martin's Cottage

Still in existence, the cottage is now a Bed and Breakfast. It recently suffered some damage as a result of a fire (click here to read further).

(from the St. Edmundsbury Borough Council website)

(from Buried Passions: Maria Martin and the Murder in the Red Barn)


(from postcardworld.co.uk)

(From - The Red Barn Mystery: Some New Evidence on an Old Murder)



(from Buried Passions: Maria Martin and the Murder in the Red Barn)

(from organicplacestostay.com)

Red Barn Book Covers and Title Pages

Here are some scans of book covers/title pages used with permission from Stewart P Evans.

These are scans of books from his own collection.

I found them on an interesting forum thread on the Casebook: Jack the Ripper site.

Sally Sloane

I found this on Warren Fahey's excellent Australian folklore site. It's the lyrics of a song based on the murder that have travelled all the way to Australia and were sung by Sally Sloane. Her recollections about the song:

"You know there are bits in it I can't remember where her body was tied up in a sack and mangled with many a dreadful wound. The cook, I think, mangled her up and put her in the bag. Her mother dreamt the same dream for three weeks and the neighbour with his pickaxe is part of it too. Anyhow they dug the ground and there they found where she was. "

Link to the lyrics

Link to information about Sally Sloane

Huish or Maginn?

From a response I received regarding the book The Red Barn, I tend to think that Peter Haining has made an error about the authorship of the book. The response I recieved asserts the book is likely to be written by Robert Huish.

Maginn's supposed authorship comes from, according to the response I received about the book, one John Timbs. A book he wrote (Predictions Realized in Modern Times) under the psuedonym Horace Welby asserts that Maginn was the author of the book.

Charles Welch also asserts Maginn's authorship :

Sadleir , notes that 'Halkett & Laing attribute the work to William Maginn on the strength of a paragraph by Charles Welch, published in The Library Journal, vol. v, p. 88, March 1880'.

-from the British Fiction 1800-1829 database

I found a small copy of part of what Welch wrote on Google Books.


I am having trouble finding anything on the internet verifying Huish as the author. A lot of websites assert his authorship, but none provide any evidence. If anyone who might read this knows anything please let me know.

Catnach's Broadsheet

The broadsheets that were released during William Corder's trial and after his execution were one way in which people capitalized on the popularity of the murder. One of these, written by James Catnach, supposedly sold over one million copies. The Catnach broadsheet also includes a 'confessional ballad' written, it is asserted, by William Corder himself. It is more than likely that Catnach or an associate wrote the ballad rather than Corder.

Catnach broadsheet from Wikipedia

The ballad provides a remorseful recount of the murder and finishes with a resigned farewell...

Adieu adieu, my loving friends my glass is almost run,
On Monday next will be my last when I am to be hang'd.

So all young men who do pass by with pity look on me,
For murdering of that young girl I was hang'd upon a tree.

Versions of this ballad also travelled orally through the 19th century throughout England but as Warren Fahey points out, "Ballads such as The dreadful murder of Maria Marten and the red barn door were sung all over Great Britain and taken to Canada, the USA and Australia." When Australian composer/folk music collector Percy Grainger recorded Joseph Taylor in 1908 at Brigg, Lincolnshire, he sang an abbreviated version of this ballad.

If you'll meet me at the Red Barn As sure as I have life I will take you to Ipswich Town And there make you my wife.
This lad went home and fetched his gun, His pickaxe and his spade. He went unto the Red Barn And there he dug her grave.

With her heart so light she thought no harm
To meet her love did go.
He murdered her all in the barn
And he laid her body low.

Information on Joseph Taylor can be found here at the (Mostly) English Folk Music website.

Joseph Taylor from the (Mostly) English Folk Music Website

Apparently the melody Taylor sang was derived from the Dives and Lazarus song family. The cylinder recordings Grainger made are available on the album Unto Brigg Fair.

Taylor's version of the ballad can be listened through the EFDSS website (listen here).

The Catnach ballad has also been recorded by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country on their album No Roses. Using the same melody as Taylor it incorporates some very inventive folk rock instrumentation that emphasises the very striking and evocative quality of Shirley Collins' voice on this track.

No Roses by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band (from the No Roses website)

Other modern interpretations of the Catnach broadsheet ballad:

Maddie Southorn - The Murder of Maria Martin
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman - The Red Barn
White Swans Black Ravens - Maria Martin