The first recorded account of a witch trial at Bury St Edmunds was in 1599 when Jone Jordan of Shadbrook (Stradbroke) and Joane Nayler were tried, but there is no record of the charges or verdicts.
This trial links to the case of Oliffe Bartham of Stradbrook who was charged with sending toads to disturb Joan’s sleep.
In 1645, sixteen women — Anne Alderman (Chattisham), Rebecca Morris (Chattisham), Mary Bacon (Chattisham), Mary Clowes, Sarah Spindler, Jane Linstead, Mary Everard, Mary Fuller, Susan Manners (Copdock), Jane Rivet (Copdock), Mary Skipper (Copdock), Mary Smith, Margery Sparham, Katherine Tooly, Anne Leech and Anne Wright (along with two men) Thomas Everard and John Lowes, the vicar of Brandeston, were convicted of witchcraft. All were from villages in the surrounding area.
The trial was overseen by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General, and culminated in the execution of all eighteen individuals on 27 August 1645 — all in a single day. At the time, this was the largest witchcraft case in English legal history, surpassing the trial of the eleven Pendle witches in 1612.
Those accused were taken to a building on the site of what is now The Nutshell, where their nails were cut and locks of hair removed. These were stored in brown jars in the basement, based on the belief that if a person was not physically whole in death, they could not return as a witch in the afterlife.