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| Nicholas Church Radstock Copyright Nigel Shoosmith |
I picked up a copy of the early recollections of Moses Horler which covers Radstock before the railways. Lots of interesting stories but one in particular I have typed as I had heard of this story but had not seen in print.
I must not forget to tell you of a romantic love affair which had a tragic ending, which happened in Radstock many years ago: it is the story of the beautiful Miss Smith, whose father once lived at the old Bell Inn and afterwards at Radstock House he being one of the owners of the Radstock and Writhlington pits.
Now a private soldier came to visit some of his friends in Radstock, and he, very naturally, of course, fell in love with the beautiful girl and she also fell in love with him; but I'm sorry to say her father was bitterly opposed to the match and would not hear of their union.
The poor lovers were very miserable at the idea of parting, and the sad result was, they agreed to die together. So one night they walked to the land near the church and he shot her in the face with a pistol, and then after asking her if she was dying, and her having answered 'yes', he then shot himself and he fell back in the bank of the hedge dead. Strange to say however, the young lady was not killed but was only wounded and so she returned but the poor soldier was beyond all earthly and hope and he was buried in a suicide's grave taken up again and laid to rest in the churchyard by night, by the desire of the young lady and at her expense and a strange superstition arose which was to the effect that nothing would afterwards grow upon the spot where the poor soldier's head underneath the hedge in the lane.
This is the end of the story of this girl, and I remember that she bore the marks of the tragedy to the day of her death.
