Legendary Essex note : A carved female character with cloven hooves in the style of a ship’s figurehead from 1596. The building was built by a local builder, so pleased with himself he carved ‘George Boote made this house: 1596’ into the timber. The unusually fierce carving of the Felsted Hag, a naked lady with cloven feet, is said to come alive at Halloween and has led to lots of speculation over her identity. Was she meant to depict George Boote’s wife or the only convicted witch in Felsted’s history, Alice Alberte, tried 3 years prior for bewitching dozens of sheep, a pig, a cow and its calf?
