My colleague took a trip to Gloucester yesterday and while there made a side trip to the 'house of horrors' to take a few photos. Even though the house has been demolished I found it frankly distasteful but he didn't think anything of it.
Do you think it's right to visit murder sites?
I think the answer is it depends. I’ve been known to visit a few railway accident memorials, and I wouldn’t say there’s anything distasteful about that - in my view part of the raisin d’etre for having such memorials is to ensure the lessons learned are never forgotten. And one can’t help but have the most massive admiration for someone like Driver Axon of Chapel-en-le-Frith fame.
I have to confess that on a recent holiday we, happening to be in Bathpool Park for another reason, out of curiosity couldn’t resist seeking out the manhole at the centre of the Black Panther murder. In all honesty it was rather moving and sobering.
It’s worth noting that memories of these incidents are often still locally raw many years later. I remember visiting the scene of the Lockington crossing accident a few years ago, as it happens more to do with the disused station than the accident, and one of the nearby property owners commented that it’s still an open wound locally. That was over 30 years past the event.
I’d say there’s nothing dark about it, but certainly respect needs to be shown.