A woman Ledbury will never forget

St Katherine is a figure much associated with Ledbury, but which one are we talking about?

The inspiration for at least some of the associations may not have been an 'official' saint at all, but a medieval recluse with royal connections, who settled in the town during the thirteenth or early fourteenth century.

The other St Catherine, as her name usually appears, was the inspiration for the popular spinning firework, because she was tortured, so legend has it, by being fastened to a spiked wheel.

In Ledbury there is St Katherine's Hall, St Katherine's Almshouse and St Katherine's Chapel in St Michael and All Angel's Church (now known as the Chapter House). But to whom were these buildings actually dedicated, and when?

There is even a medieval decorated tomb in the parish church, close to the organ, said to be the resting-place of "Sainte Kateryne". But, if genuine, this must be the grave not of St Catherine but of Lady Katherine Audley who, though considered pious and saintly in life, was never in fact canonised.

Somewhere down the centuries, the identities of the two women blended, with the irony that a probably fictitious saint from 4th Century Alexandria is often confused with a real woman, Lady Audley, who indeed led what might be called a holy life in Ledbury.

But that is just a part of the tale and the beginning of mystery. As David Annett, of Newland, near Malvern, explains in his 1999 Logaston Press publication, Saints in Herefordshire, the original St Kather-ine's Almshouse was founded around 1252, before the birth of Katherine Audley, who entered the world in 1272.

Other historians claim the original Almshouse could date back as early as 1231 or 1232.

So it seems that the 4th Century saint was the inspiration here, and not the medieval noblewoman. The same is likely to be true of the neighbouring St Katherine's Hall.

Ledbury was probably responding to the winds of history and fashion, in that St Catherine was a cult saint among the returning Crusaders, although, as Mr Annett points out, "all accounts of her life are completely unhistorical".

Not so with Katherine Audley, a cousin of King Edward II, murdered at Berkeley Castle in neighbouring Gloucestershire and buried at Gloucester Cathedral.

The tomb alleged to be hers in Ledbury Parish Church is topped by a resting female figure that is of the right period, the 14th century, although the tomb itself is of a later time.

But if this is the last resting-place of the saintly aristocrat, how did she come to town?

Old accounts tell how she had a revelation that she should only dwell in a place where the bells rang by themselves.

When she and her faithful maid, Mabel, arrived in Ledbury, they found that the bells were indeed pealing by themselves. Whether this was down to a miracle or some cunning mechanical device is not made clear.

The poet Wordsworth seemed to lean towards the miraculous, when he wrote: "Ledbury bells/ Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells.... Mabel listened at the side of her loved mistress..."

Whatever the case, she built a hermitage in Ledbury "and dwelt living on herbs and milk".

It wasn't just Katherine who started to be associated with Ledbury from then on. Off the Southend is "Mabel's Furlong" which probably is named after the aristocrat's maid.

Katherine Audley is thought to have used her royal connections to get the 14th Century Chapter House built in St Michael and All Angels for the College of Priests.

Certainly, it seems churlish to deny that St Katherine's Chapel in the church is named after her.

Legend has it that, before her death, she declared that the door to the chapel should never be opened by human hands, but should always be allowed to open by itself.

If this direction had been followed, Ledbury would have become "the richest town in England".

But drunken revellers disobeyed her instructions, and the town had to make do with a more modest, though not an unprosperous future.