Did you know? Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, was born at Manningtree in the 1620s, Dick Turpin, the country's most notorious highwayman, was born at Thaxted in 1705 and the nation's longest serving hangman, William Calcraft, who served his office between 1829 and 1874, was born at Little Baddow near Chelmsford. Agnes Waterhouse, the first woman to be executed for witchcraft in England, was hanged at Chelmsford in 1566 A most unusual and grim pickle was sampled at Danbury Church in 1779. After uncovering one of the crusader tombs the noble knight's body was found preserved in a substance which had the appearance and consistency of pickle - it was not long before a local gentleman tasted it to agree it tasted like pickle too! A zeppelin crashed at Little Wigborough in 1916. The crew walked out of the wreckage and surrendered to the first bobby they found - PC Charles Smith, who was subsequently nicknamed as 'Zep'. In 1921 coach loads of curious visitors came to a garden in St Osyth to view a 'bound and nailed' skeleton of one of the witches executed after the 1582 witch trials. Neil Storey's macabre calendar chronicles the darker side of life in the Essex.Murderers and footpads, pimps and prostitutes, riots, rebels, bizarre funerals, disaster and peculiar medicine will all feature. The book is illustrated with engravings, newspaper reports, photographs and original documents.