Looking at Pendle Hill in the picture, you would think what a nice calm looking countryside Pendle Hill is, that doesn't look scary, but as the famous saying goes, Looks can be decieving.

Pendle Hill is famous for its links to three events which took place in the 17th century: the Pendle witch trials (1612), Richard Towneley's barometer experiment (1661), and the claimed visitation to George Fox (1652), which led to the foundation of the Quaker movement. A Bronze Age burial site has been also discovered at the summit of the hill.

There are many prejudices that have been associated with witches and witchcraft since times of old. Though, during the olden times, witches were associated with healing and warding off illnesses that the public was afflicted with. This faith was brought about by Christian priest who performed the sacrament of anointing of the sick that sometimes caused people on their deathbed to miraculously get well and thus defeat death.
However, these beliefs were put aside when witches were found to be misusing their powers to bring about harm and inflict injury on enemies. Devil worship, Satanism as well as evil doings soon began to spread about in the entire Christian society and thus witches were considered as a direct threat to church authorities and the public. Since that time witches began worshipping manifestations of the earth and the earth goddess to help remove and dislodge them of the taint born out of ignorance and distrust.

One of the most scintillating and horrific story that has witches at the forefront is the one about the witches of Pendle Hill. In the early 16th century when witchcraft was at its high there were allegedly some witches which made use of their power to inflict injury on other people. This initiated action against them which led to what is known as the legend of the witches of Pendle Hill, however many people maintain that the occurrence is true.

The story goes that innumerable atrocities that were committed by the witches of Pendle which led the local court ordering an enquiry that resulted in many witches from the area taken into custody and tortured to great extents. Among the first witches captured in these witch hunts as they were known was a feared woman named Alizon Device.

The crime she was accused of was casting a curse on a beggar causing him to die to slow and painful death. The torture carried out on Alizon Device resulted in her confession wherein she pointed to two other women in whose homes clay figures and bones of people who had died in the last few years. After their arrest they were hung publicly and the witch hunts continued and resulted in the capture of 13 another alleged witches. These witches were all hung in the Lancaster gaol.

Legend has it that the Pendle witches sold their souls to a demon who in turn gave them power to dominate all those who were their enemies. The confessions state that the usual modus operandi used by these witches to kill people consisted of a clay ethigy which was broken, burnt and immersed over a period of time causing the intended victim suffer and consequently die. All witches that had been caught and hung by the court were collectively known as the witches of Pendle Hill.

Pendle hill has been investigated by Most haunted on Halloween where Derek Acorah was supposedly
possessed by several spirits such as Roger de lacey. Acorah was also supposedly in contact with spirits of three Cavaliers, killed by the Scots when they attacked the royalist garrison during the English Civil War.