Mystery
A Queen's Lost Heart
Her head stayed in London. Her heart may have come home.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small village church with a note beneath the organ
- Legend from
- Tudor, 1536
- Tone
- Curious
Erwarton: a Tudor queen lost her head in London. Some say her heart came home to this little Suffolk church.
Erwarton tradition holds that after Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1536, her heart was secretly brought to Suffolk and buried in the parish church. The Boleyns had close family ties here through the Calthorpe and Parker families, and Anne is said to have stayed at Erwarton Hall as a girl and asked that her heart rest there. In 1837, during work in the church, a small heart-shaped lead casket was found in a wall. It held only dust. It was reburied beneath the organ, where a note records the story. Historians point out that Anne is buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower.