Melancolia in Mexborough

Intrigued to discover family roots i wanted to visit this viaduct - at this point i had been misdirected many times and had to call at an old house for directions - i told him what i was looking for and he pointed the way and said '"here have been many suicides there"..at which point my husband and daughter and dogs had reached their limit with me and my camera + decided to hang back in the car and watched me march on into the woods looking for the viaduct and a clearing ..eventually found it.

A very beautiful

if not tragic place

On reading about the viaduct when I got home I came across his sad story

1925 The Conisborough Viaduct Tragedy

Violet Emily Turner was an attractive 20-year-old whose husband had left her the previous year to return to his parent’s greengrocer business in Lancashire. On August 24, 1925 she travelled to see her husband regarding maintenance of their three children, which he had never provided, and she returned without success.

She had ‘taken up’ with 17-year-old George Temperton, whom she had met in May. The couple had aquired lodgings in Rossington, on the pretence they were married. Turner’s family found out about this and on the day of Violet’s return, several members of the family went to visit them to persuade Temperton to come home. He went back with them to Edlington at about 5 o’clock.

George had said he was going back to his mother’s but unbeknown to the family he had arranged to meet Violet at 9.30 pm, near the Conisborough viaduct, taking his brother’s razor with him. Violet and George made a suicide pact. Violets’s last words were; “Will you promise me to cut your own throat?” George agreed and after cutting Violet’s throat he attempted to cut his own but failed, although he severed his own wind pipe. At 10.10 pm George knocked on the door of the “Wingate Cottages”, Conisborough, and announced that he had, “ done my woman in under the viaduct.” First aid was rendered to stem George’s bleeding, the police were called and were directed to the scene of the tragedy. There Violet was lying on her back with a very severe cut on her neck. The cut was so severe that the head was nearly cut off – even the spinal column had been cut.

At Leeds assizes on December 14th, the jury retired for eight minutes and returned to pronounce a verdict of “guilty.” The judge then assumed the black cap and pronounced the death sentence.The sentence was commuted on Christmas Eve to penal servitude for life.

{https://conisbroughanddenabyhistory.org.uk/article/murder/}

not a cheery post but life is all things not just wine + roses hey