Memorial to remember murdered Victorian teenager

A memorial has been created to remember a teenage girl whose murder has remained unsolved for almost 150 years.

Lucy Sands was just 16 when she went to meet friends and disappeared in Workington, Cumbria, in December 1881. Her body was found under a pile of cobbles three months later.

A plaque and a rose bush have been installed at the graveyard in the grounds of St John's Church, on the site where she had been buried.

Neil Schofield, mayor of Workington Town Council, which is behind the memorial, said: "It shows what a varied history we have and that you don't have to be rich and famous to go down in history - the working man and woman can too."

Schofield added the memorial was a reminder of the importance for people to look after each other in the community.

"Safety, not just for women, but for everybody, needs to be paramount in everyone's thinking," he added.

Lucy was born in Antrim, Northern Ireland, in 1865 and when her parents died, she and her brother James were sent to live with their grandmother on Christian Street in Workington.

Signs of her existence had been present in the town but disappeared between the 1960s and 1970s.

A gravestone was removed when the churchyard at St John's was cleared about 60 years ago and a memorial tree was removed some time later from the town's Northside area, marking the place where her body was discovered.

Her story was recently retold through a series created by independent film-maker Stephen Baldwin, which has been shown at the town's Helena Thompson museum.

At the time, Lucy's violent murder had been considered one of the worst reported crimes in Victorian Britain and attracted worldwide attention, Mr Baldwin said.

He worked with more than 300 local people who appeared as actors and extras in the Ballad of Lucy Sands, a seven-part series on the teenager's life and untimely demise.

Mr Baldwin said he was proud to see the memorial created.

"It's something that's been lost for too long," he said.

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