ON Tuesday evening, I addressed the ladies of Shadforth WI. My reputation clearly proceeded me as they had fortified themselves with a glass of wine before I arrived.

Shadforth is an ancient village on a high plain, clustered around its defensive village green, surrounded by a squadron of spinning wind turbines. I like old names on maps, and so discovered that Shadforth is a “shallow ford”, and nearby is Crime Rigg Quarry. I imagined that once some appalling act of felony had taken place up there but no, a crime rigg is a crooked ridge.

On my way back down Horse Hill towards Durham City, I spotted a signpost to Coxhoe. Only that lunchtime, I had been reading about a genuine act of felony that had taken place there 150 years ago to the day, so I headed towards the scene of the crime.

The difference between the two villages is striking: Shadforth old and agricultural with individual houses huddled together; Coxhoe is new and industrial, its Victorian terraces sprawling along long streets.

Somewhere on a lane there on June 23, 1866, George Bell, of Coxhoe, had been heard having “sharp words” with William Beaumont. Hours later, according to the Darlington & Stockton Times, Mr Bell was found dead. His body was examined by local surgeon Mr Carnes, who concluded that his badly bashed skull had been fractured by a blow from "a blunt instrument like a stick or hedge stake" which had unleashed a fatal "extravasation of blood on the brain".

Extravasation sounds extremely painful and the dictionary tells me it is the “escape of an organic fluid from its proper vessel”. He bled to death, poor chap.

Mr Bell was laid to rest in Coxhoe, but when his death was discussed at an inquest, the jury ruled that he died because of a blow administered by Mr Beaumont, but whether it was in lawful self-defence or whether it was of murderous intent, it was unable to say.

Mr Bell’s friends thought Mr Beaumont was getting away with murder so they petitioned the Home Secretary to exhume his body for further examination. The Home Secretary agreed, and on July 13, 1866, the unfortunate Mr Bell was dug up. As I stood in the growing gloom in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, dogwalkers going one way and teenagers in shorts on mobile phones going the other, I tried to imagine the immense sensation 150 years ago with crowds of curious Coxhoers gathering to watch the grisly resurrection.

George Shaw, surgeon of Durham, and Mr Broadbent, surgeon of South Hetton, conducted a second post mortem. They concluded that “there is neither wound, nor bruise, nor indentation, nor scratch on the head of the deceased, thus going in the very teeth of Mr Carnes' evidence”.

An amazed D&S said: "This seems to be a most flagrant illustration of the saying that doctors differ."

So, 150 years ago to the day, Durham magistrates re-examined the evidence. The murder scene in the lane was also re-investigated and rather than being soft and sandy, as was originally believed, it was found to be hard and stony.

The magistrates called Mr Carnes before them. He, perhaps unsurprisingly, was unable to attend and sent his assistant, Mr Bryden, to face the music. Mr Bryden said at the original post mortem that Mr Carnes had "observed an indentation in the skull but he had not found it now. He could not account for this".

With no evidence against him, Mr Bowman was discharged. Mr Bell was reinterred. I couldn’t find him in the churchyard, which became even less surprising when I discovered the church itself hadn’t opened until 1868. Nevertheless, I raised a glass to the ladies who had led me to the scene of this strange and gruesome happening exactly one-and-a-half centuries earlier.