A shocking discovery stunned Nantwich on 20 March, 1926 when bailiff, George Buckingham, forced his way into a Barker Street house shut off from the outside world for years.

When he and court officials broke into the house with iron bars and entered the kitchen, they were greeted by three sisters who owned the property, with one saying: "We are in God's hands. This is God's house.

The girl continued: "There is fire and brimstone in every room. Mother must not be touched. She is in God's hands."

Lying there on a couch in the kitchen was a practically mummified skeleton of an elderly woman, Mrs. Emma Nixon, covered with a white sheet.

Pulling off the sheet, officials witnessed the corpse to be wrapped in paper and rags. It was thought her body had been there for around four years.

The woman's feet rested on a box, and nearby was a table neatly laid out with the likes of fruit, nuts and bread.

One sister said the spread was for "the Lord's dinner," insisting it should not be touched. Another claimed singing birds had told her to prepare it.

The three Nixon sisters had been living alone in the house and were known locally as reclusive and unusual.

They told officials they hadn't slept in beds for four years, choosing instead to stay in the kitchen with their mother's body.

The youngest of the sisters then ran into the garden crying, seating herself on the garden wall.

It soon became obvious that it was her who had believed herself to hear the strange demands from God.

Further investigation of the house, which, aside from its dark secret below, was extremely clean, found a large number of unused goods which had been stored in the uninhabited rooms above.

When neighbours previously asked about their mother, the sisters would simply reply: "She is quite nice."

All three were later examined by doctors and found to be suffering from serious mental distress (in this period, certified as "insane").

That same evening, they were taken to Chester Asylum and spent the rest of their lives there.

After so many years, coroners could not determine Emma's cause of death with any certainty, but were satisfied enough to accept nothing untoward had happened.

The case quickly provoked a wave of interest across the UK, remaining one of the most haunting stories in Nantwich's past.

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