In his Worthies (1662), Thomas Fuller records the death at Amersham in 1521 of the Protestant martyr William Scrivener, ‘on whom an extraordinary piece of cruelty was used, his own children being forced to set first fire upon him’. William Tylesworth was also burnt here, ‘and Joan, his only daughter, and a faithful woman, was compelled with her own hands to set fire to her dear father’.
A correspondent from High Wycombe wrote to the Gentleman’s Magazine in October 1811:
Some public papers having noticed the Grave of the Martyr at Amersham…I have been led to make inquiry respecting the truth of the statement; and find from concurrent and indisputable testimony, that there is a spot of ground deemed sacred from being the place where a martyr was burnt – it is about 24 yards in circumference, and when… the rest of the field begins to flourish and become green, the blades of grass or corn, on this spot, begin to look unhealthy and dwindle; as the harvest approaches, it looks more and more unfruitful; and though particular pains have been taken by extra-manuring, removing the earth, etc it has remained barren in spite of man’s efforts to fertilize it. This year the field is sown with wheat, and discovers the place of martyrdom.