At Rushton Spencer village churchyard, under the yew-tree, you'll notice a grave that is out of sync with the other burial. Thomas Meakin (or Meaykin) is laid the 'wrong way round', ie his gravestone faces west instead of east. This can happen for a number of reasons - but one is that the grave might contain an unhappy spirit.
If Thomas' story is true, then he would be unhappy. His friends suspected that he had been drugged with a powerful poison, fallen into a coma, and been buried alive. When they dug his grave up, it is said that he was lying not on his back, but on his front - a sure sign that he had waked after being buried.
Thus Thomas was re-buried the 'wrong way round', with the new inscription "As man falleth before wicked men; so fell I".
There are a few sources for the story - neatly pulled together on the Mondrem website.
What a story and one which has an element of truth to it. What an awful thing to happen
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