A PLAQUE has been attached to the previously unmarked grave of one of the most colourful characters in North- East history.

The body of the self-styled Countess of Derwentwater, Amelia Matilda Mary Tudor Radcliffe, is buried in Blackhill Cemetery, near Consett , County Durham.

Earlier this month, 18 members of the Northumbrian Jacobite Society visited the cemetery to add a plaque to a recently-installed small stone cross, which was erected by society members George and Lorraine Hunter.

Ms Radcliffe, pictured right, became one of Blackhill’s best known residents in the mid- 19th Century following her long, but unsuccessful, struggle to claim lands she said was rightfully hers.

She was, she claimed, heir to the estate of James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, an English Jacobite executed for treason in 1716.

Maurice Milne, who wrote a booklet about the “countess”, said: “The high water-mark of her campaign was her triumphal entry into Consett in 1870 after her supporters had rustled livestock from one of ‘her’ farms, Newlands South, near Whittonstall.

“ T h e r e a f t e r things went downhill for Amelia – bankruptcy, imprisonment, and finally death in poverty in 1880.

“The society’s members are divided as to whether Amelia was fraudulent, delusional, or just possibly of some kindred to the Radcliffe Earls of Derwentwater.

“They are united, however, in sympathy for a d e t e r m i n e d woman who was prepared to suffer for her cause.”

The society is also trying to establish the location of the house in Cutlers Hall Road, widely believed to be Dial House, where Ms Radcliffe, who some claimed was merely a West Country servant girl trying her luck, died.

Mr Milne said: “There is an enduring local belief that it was Dial House, so called because of the sundial above the door.

“Amelia’s death certificate however states that she died at Number 53, whereas Dial House is Number 64.

“In any case, Dial House is much too fine a property to be Amelia’s home in her final impoverished years. It was certainly a house fit for a real countess, which might explain the local tradition.”

For further information, visit northumbrianjacobites.

org.uk