Costessey Mills

"A singular story of a supposed murder was published.  A human skeleton was recovered from the bed of the river at Costessey Mills by a “didling” boat owned by Messrs. Culley.  The circumstance was recalled that a Jew pedlar, known as “Old Abraham,” had mysteriously disappeared eight years previously.  It was also remembered that one Robert Page, sentenced to transportation for life for sheep stealing at Drayton, on March 27th, 1834, had told the prison warders that if he were taken to Costessey he could show them, beneath a willow tree, “something that would make their hair stand on end.”  By a curious coincidence, the skeleton was found beneath a willow which overhung the river.  It was stated that the body had been staked down in the bed of the stream."

Title: Norfolk Annals  A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth Century, Vol. 1     Author: Charles Mackie