A January sun, low and cold, is quietly colouring the round tower of Surlingham Church. The only sounds are the rooks gossiping as they leave their winter roost nearby and the soft crunch from the frosted grass as your footsteps leave a silent trail of footprints across the graveyard.

Almost 250 years ago a baby girl was baptised here who would leave her own footprints indelibly in the margins of history and yet remain strangely anonymous in the county and even the village of her birth.
Her name was Susannah Holmes. Her story and that of her lover and later husband Henry Kable is so strange it almost defies the description stranger than fiction.

The full story of Susannah and Henry is detailed in the following section Norwich Castle Gaol – The prison where the story started.

To read more ……. for the full story click here.

Susannah was born on 01/03/1764 and baptised on 06/03/1764 in Surlingham, Norfolk, England.
Susannah died on the 6th of November 1825 and was burried in the family vault at St. Matthew’s church at Windsor.

The obituarie reads (transcribed from the article underneath):
On the 6th instant, in the 62d year of her age, after a short but severe illness, at her residence in Windsor, Mrs. Susannah Kable, wife of Mr. Henry Kable. Mrs. Kable was one of the oldest inhabitants of this Colony, having arrived with her husband in the first fleet. From Governor Phillips, as well as the Officers collectively, but more particularly from the Rev. Mr. Johnstone and Lady, Mrs. Kable and family received much friendly attention. Her memory will be long cherished by her friends, as she was very generally and deservedly respected.