A MURDER on Exmoor more than 160 years ago has inspired a new song just released by a Dutch folkrock band.

‘The Cost of Living’ is the eleventh song by Maggie’s Flock, a six piece band from the middle-eastern part of the Netherlands who mix traditional folk instruments with a solid rock base.

It is based on a tragedy which happened near Simonsbath in 1858 and is described by vocalist Roel Seidell as ‘a murder ballad starting off with two-part vocals and building up to a rocking folk crescendo’.

Mr Seidell said it was a ‘real folk song’ telling the tale of ‘a family crumbling under the pressures of disease, hardship, poverty, and cruelty’.

The true life story behind the song is the murder of a six-year-old girl, who is remembered today with a headstone in St Luke’s churchyard, Simonsbath.

It revolves around William Burgess, who in the 1850s lived with his wife and three children in a cottage outside Simonsbath until Mrs Burgess died in 1857.

The two older children were put into service on local farms, but Anna Maria, aged six, was too young and moved with Mr Burgess to lodgings in the village, where he paid a local woman 2s 6d to look after her.

However, Mr Burgess would rather spend the money on alcohol and so he killed Anna Maria, dumped her body in the disused copper mine Wheal Eliza on the banks of the River Barle, and told everybody his daughter had gone to Porlock to live with relatives.

The lie was uncovered and Anna Maria’s body recovered and buried in the churchyard, following which Mr Burgess was convicted of murder and hanged in 1859.

In 2000, the Exmoor Society funded a headstone for Anna Maria but the location of her grave was unknown so it was erected in a ‘suitable spot’.