I had a couple of hours to kill whilst my bike was being serviced on the outskirts of Bierton near Aylesbury last September This gave me a chance to look for Corbet's Piece, the corner of the field that sited the last gibbet erected in Bucks in 1773
(post #144). The gibbet where Corbet creaked in the wind for 20 years has long gone, but apparently about "17 chains" (~350 metres) away, the farmhouse where the ghastly murder took place (and where Corbet's dog got shut in) still stands as a private residence.
I'd read in the Reference library that a footpath was made to avoid passing the gibbet and the maggotty corpse, running from the
Chalk-house Arms along the backs of the hovels in Bierton and this was still in existence. Finally the lane facing the western boundary of the field was renamed Gib Lane (which is easy to find).
Now some-one on
blipfoto about 5 years ago put up photos of what he thought was the farmhouse, possible site of the gibbet and the diversionary footpath. Jolly good for him, I have no intention of stealing his glory or his pictures - but I don't recognise any of the sites and I couldn't find my bearings from Gib Lane because of lack of access to the fields and the closure of the footpaths due to the HS2 rail work-gangs. Still, I was in Bierton, with a couple of hours to kill - so I went looking for the footpath from the east side of town.
Bierton had 4 pubs 250 years ago but now down to 2, the
Chalk-house Arms is no more but there was a very faint chance that it had been renamed as one of the existing pubs. I was fairly positive this wasn't the case, but there was a narrow path running down the side of
The Bell (photo #1) and I'm a sucker for the road less travelled or the path less trod. The path meandered around the allotments (photo #2) and finally leads to a series of stiles (photo #3) opened up into empty fields.
I knew I wasn't in the right place for Corbet's Piece, which made what happened next more extraordinary. Half way into my stride - a dryness in the mouth, a fizz in the tummy, a head jerk to the tree-line and the feeling I was being watched from afar.
(Quite probably so, given I was a stranger with a camera wandering around the backs of £million houses on a Tuesday morning).
It wasn't a fight or flight adrenaline rush, it wasn't agoraphobia - it was a buzz of excitement and trepidation. I wanted to stride out into the fields to get closer to Gib Lane, but there were notices clearly stating not to leave the path and I strongly felt it unwise to do so.
The photo (#4) is not much to look at - you needed to be there. A generation of Villagers must have hurried along that path with their heads down, trying to ignore something on the horizon that was designed to catch the eye - a deterrent, an 18 foot gibbet post with a cage swinging in the wind that would have attracted crows from miles around. I think I was on the equivalent of the dark landing between a kid's bedroom and bathroom at night, trying not to look at the moving shadows. Will try more exploring in the Spring.
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