Season 7
07×01: The Green Man
End of the 18th century: The ceiling collapses during canal construction work at Midsomer Worthy and buried eight workers. In order not to run out of time and go bankrupt, 38-year-old engineer John Haslett decides, in the interests of his investors, to leave the eight dead in situ and merely had a retaining wall put in. This allowed the excavation work to continue on the very next day. This was all forgotten by the time he received his knighthood.
The newspaper “Midsomer Journal” accused John Haslett of putting his own interests before human lives and reported: „Local Canal in Tunnel Collapse. Eight men still missing. Yesterday afternoon at approximately 3.30 pm a collapsed in the Midsomer canal happened, devastating locals and fellow workers. It is believed workers are still missing and friends and family fear the worst. The engineer Sir John Haslett has called the search off believing the workers would all be dead due the size of the cane in. Angered locals are up in arms over the decision and have called for further searches. A service for the bereaved has hastily arranged in respect in respect conducted by the local vicar, angering friends and family further. [… That’s all you can read in the scene]“
1801: On 2 May it is recorded in the minutes of the Midsomer Canal Company that £ 12 11 shilling 9 pence are paid to blacksmith Thomas Edwards „in discharge of his bill for iron work to the wheelbarrows, for the use of in the said navigation“. This entry is presumably related to the collapsed part of the Midsomer Canal at Midsomer Worthy. End of the 18th Century.
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07×02: Bad Tidings
1086/87: Chainey’s Field in Midsomer Mallow is mentioned as common land in Domesday Book.
Deep Dive: Domesday in Midsomer
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07×03: The Fisher King
About 800 BC (Iron Age): In Midsomer Barrow, a local ruler, the Fisher King, is murdered with a spear in his leg and a role model for the Fisher King from the later Arthurian legend and the so called “dolorous stroke”/„dolorous blow“. Midsomer’s Fisher King is buried in the land that later becomes part of the Heldman’s estate.
Deep Dive: The Fisher King in Midsomer County
1970: On Roger Heldman’s estate, local archaeologist Paul Heartley-Reade and archaeologist Dr James Lavery from the Ashmolean Museum find a Celtic grave – the grave of Midsomer’s Fisher King. Landowner and multiple rapist Roger Heldman is murdered here. The Celtic artefacts are recovered and recorded in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford with the location Suffolk. Shortly afterwards, Paul Heartley-Reade fakes his own death.
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07×06: The Straw Woman
Sometime between 1536 and 1541 (Dissolution of Monasteries): When monasteries were dissolved, Parva Manor got the land and in this way also a chapel which stands near the manor, says the Clifford family. Unfortunately there are no more records from that time, so it is without evidence.
Deep Dive: The Dissolution of the Monasteries in Midsomer Murders
17th century: There was an outbreak of swine fever in Midsomer Parva. The villagers tried to contain the epidemic with prayers, but were unsuccessful. Some women are able to nurse pigs back to health by using herbal remedies, but the women are tried for witchcraft and hanged from the old oak tree. The first of them is named Katherine Malpas.
Deep Dive: Witch-Hunting in Midsomer County