THE MARTYRS' WALK

THE MARTYRS' WALK

DOTProductions on the streets of Brentwood

31.03.12

Stood with the people of Burnt Wood to witness once more the life of William Hunter, weaver's apprentice, little more than a boy, who would not bow to the Church of Rome, its bishops and its priests, and met a terrible death by burning in the reign of Mary.

From the crossroads, and his early life, to the ruin'd Chapel, here doing the office of Saint Paul's, past The Swan, The White Hart and the Lion & Lamb to the Common, beyond the sign of the Artichoke, where he stood bravely at the stake as the fires consumed him. We met on the road his Parents, his accuser Justice Antony Browne, his brother Robert who led us through the tale, and the Bishop of London, that men called Bloody Bonner.

I myself played some small unlook'd-for part in these sad proceedings, being roped in, as the saying has, to personate one John Laurence, priest and Black Friar, who met the self-same fate two days after William, in Colchester Town.

The Martyr's Walk was street theatre devised and presented by DOT productions, and supported by Brentwood Borough Council and the Brentwood Renaissance Group.