A LANCASHIRE author has written a supernatural thriller to mark the 400th anniversary of the trials of the Pendle witches.

Barry Durham, 65, who lives in Chipping, spent 20 years writing The Demdike Legacy, which is set in the present day in towns and villages in the Lancashire countryside.

The story is about the murder of a woman on the outskirts of a Lancashire village, reopening the book on a legacy of witchcraft that was thought to have ended 400 years ago.

Barry, a former journalist and chairman of Chipping in Bloom, said he first became fascinated with the story of the witches when he moved to Lancashire from Manchester in 1968.

He said: “It is somehow fitting that it is finally seeing the light of day in this year to mark the 400th anniversary of the trials.”

The Demdike Legacy, £11.99, can be purchased from Clitheroe Books, in Moorlane, and The Bookshop, in Church Street, Colne.