A POEM about serial killer Mary Ann Cotton has been discovered under layers of wallpaper in a house built the same year she was sent to the gallows.

Kate Vickers uncovered the faded verse while renovating her new home in High Grange, near Crook, County Durham, on Monday.

It is understood the Victorian terrace was built the year Cotton died, 1873, leading Miss Vickers and her family to believe the poem was written contemporaneously.

The poem, which is just about legible, reads: “Sing, sing, where may I sing? Mary Ann Cotton, a piece of string. Where, where? In the church yard. Is selling black puddings, a penny a yard.”

This is similar to the well-known nursery rhyme about the West Auckland poisoner, which reads: “Mary Ann Cotton, she’s dead and she’s rotten. Lying in bed with her eyes wide open. Sing, sing, oh what should I sing? Mary Ann Cotton, she’s tied up with string. Where, where? Up in the air. Selling black puddings, a penny a pair.”

Miss Vickers and her mother, Karen, made the discovery after steaming and scraping off four layers of wallpaper in the living room.

“There was thick patterned wallpaper on top so my mum had been using a steamer to help get it off,” said Miss Vickers, 25, who got the keys to the property last Friday.

“When the words started to appear, she was more careful. Underneath the poem you can see the start of another verse but most of it has disappeared.”

She added: “I think it’s fantastic. I love history. That’s why I wanted to buy an old house. They have so much character.”

Cotton was born Mary Ann Robson in 1832 in Low Moorsley near Hetton-le-Hole.

In 1873 she was convicted and hanged for the murder of her stepson Charles Edward Cotton, but it is believed she may have murdered up to 21 people, including 11 of her 13 children and three of her four husbands. Her chief weapon was arsenic.

The murderess moved to West Auckland with her fourth husband, Frederick Cotton, three years before her trial and subsequent death by hanging.

Miss Vickers is fascinated by the story and enjoyed the recent ITV drama about Cotton starring Whitby-born Joanne Froggatt of Downton Abbey fame.

The mother-of-one plans to replaster her living room later this month but has taken a photograph of the poem which she will display in a picture frame above the fireplace.