Gibbets & Gibbeting

[Anonymous]

Cleaning dusts off a ghostly murder story

The last thing Roy Madelin expected when he cleaned out his cupboards on a fine summer's day was to be reminded of the ghostly story of a murdering rogue who robbed pilgrims of their gold.
His parents, Phylis and Roy, had told him the tale of a cold-eyed killer who went under the name of Foister who preyed on travellers at Ham Hill - and he was curious to find out more.
Some 25 years ago, he contacted the Western Gazette and through its pages found W. Hardin Osborne of Montacute, who was able to tell him the full story and supply him with a map of where the events took place.
Foister, who lived in the district end of Montacute, would invite travellers to his home only to murder them in the night for their gold and jewellery.
The authorities eventually caught him for his heinous crimes, and stuck him in an iron gibbet hung from a tree at Batemore Barn, near the road now known as Foister's Gully, where he starved to death.
His cries of "bread for Foister" were heard for several days all over the village and when he was taken down his hands and wrists were found to have been gnawed to the bone.
A passing woman took pity and gave him some candles she was carrying but was almost lynched for her trouble. ...

Report BY Simon Garnett
Western Gazette, Yeovil Edition, Thursday 9th August 2001

Comment: Ham Hill is a large iron age hill fort, and gets its name from the hamstone that is quarried there.

---

Richard Foister (or Foster) was reputedly the last highwayman to be gibbeted alive in England. In reality he seems to have been a local footpad who attacked travellers along the old coach route across Ham Hill. He was found guilty of murder and bound into a metal cage at what is now known as Foister's Gully - a hollow-way which passes along the route of the Roman road through Batemore Barn, close to the abandoned medieval hamlet. Village tradition has it that his screams of hunger could be heard in the village. On his death his wrists were found to be eaten to the bone. A local girl who offered him (tallow) candles to eat was nearly lynched for feeding him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montacute

 

[Anonymous]

A gibbet /ˈdʒɪbɪt/ is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows, or related scaffold), but gibbeting refers to the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. Occasionally, the gibbet was also used as a method of execution, with the criminal being left to die of exposure, thirst and/or starvation. The term gibbet may also be used to refer to the practice of placing a criminal on display within a gibbet. This practice is also called "hanging in chains".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbeting

 

[Anonymous]

There's a Gibbet Lane near Camberly (Surrey) and Gibbet Hill, complete with gibbet near Andover.

 

[Breakfastologist]

There is a gibbet hill above the Devils punchbowl at Hindhead, where some sailors who murdered some helpful bloke on the london - portsmouth road were hanged. There is a stone marking the place now and rumour says that if the stone is moved some terrible curse is enacted. Then again, I think the stone may have been moved to build the A3 when that happened, so it may not be so terrible a curse after all.

 

[FelixAntonius]

Caxton Gibbet, (complete with gibbet, but alas no body in chains, which has long been removed), in Cambridgeshire, where the A428 & A1198 cross. ...

Any number of Dead Man's Oak, or Dead Man's Cross etc in Bedfordshire, possibly the sites of gibbits, likewise Gallows Hill etc. ...

 

[Anonymous]

... In Halifax, where I work--and they did used to say--from hell,hull and halifax the good lord deliver us--we still have a gibbet--not in use I hasten to add ! I have a postcard of it if anyone would like to see it--it is one of the first executing machines,like the Scottish maiden and the French guillotine. In the town we have Gibbet Street named after it, and also a Goal Lane. ...

 

[Anonymous]

...

Gibbet Gibbet
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed at the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080317012457/http://www.metaphor.dk/guillotine/Pages/gibbet.html

NOTE: The Halifax Gibbet is a variant type of guillotine rather than a device for hanging criminals either alive for execution or dead as a warning to others.

​

As well as a picture there is some fascinating text, including at least one origin of 'the running man'.

 

[pintquaff]

Gibbets and such other devices were often used at cross roads so as to confuse the ghost of the criminals in them (which would surly not go to heaven) so they couldnt get revenge out of the judge and jury.

 

[OneWingedBird]

The Halifax Gibbet

Re pre-Guillotine chopping machines, there was a device of essentially the same design called the Halifax Gibbet (rather misnamed, as it wasn't a gibbet at all). This was in use in Halifax, England from at least 1286 to 1650. According to Abbott once again:

"Some time after the structure was dismantled, but a fine replica now stands on the original platform, and the blade itself, known to have beheaded at least fourty nine miscreants, is on display in the Piece Hall Pre-industrial Museum in the town"

Brain Lane's The Encyclopedia of Cruel and Unusual Punishment gives some further/variant history of the Halifax Gibbet, saying that it was nicknamed 'The Maiden', was introduced during the reign of Edward III (1312-77) and despatched 49 offenders between March 1541 and April 1650. There's also speculation that it might have been introduced by the Normans.

The same souce mentions a Scottish version of this device, just also called 'The Maiden', which was introduced by James Douglas, fourth Earl of Morton and Regent of Scotland for James VI between 1572 and 1580. Morton was later executed in his 'Maiden' for what appears to have been a political murder.

 

[Mythopoeika]

There's a place near me on the A428 called Caxton Gibbet, which is a crossroads with a roundabout. The gibbet is still there, with a Chinese restaurant next to it.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

There's a place near me on the A428 called Caxton Gibbet, which is a crossroads with a roundabout. The gibbet is still there, with a Chinese restaurant next to it.
I have no idea if there are any ghost legends about this place, though.

I've read years ago that Caxton Gibbet is haunted might have been Peter Underwood.

here's a few googles:

eerieplace.com/ghostly-tales-from-caxton-gibbet/
Link is dead. No archived version found.

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/cambridgeshire/hauntings/caxton-gibbet.html

 

[joeosker]

There's a crossroads out on the A449 South Staffs that has the occasional
late night horseman sighting ,about half a mile from Gibbit Wood were the last man in England to be gibbited met his end ...

... the area is South Staffs ,just below the Whittington Inn.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

There's a place I sometimes go mountain biking or simply walking the nature trails, near Hindhead in Surrey. There are two impressive valleys either side of an ancient crossroads, called The Devil's Punchbowl and Gibbet Hill.

A sailor was brutally murdered there and his killers hanged in chains and left to die of exposure or starvation in 1786.
Here are some photos I took there several years back, including the stone marking the spot of the gibbet. The Wikipedia page reports there is a curse on anyone who removes or damages the stone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Sailor

Unsurprisingly, the place has a disturbing atmosphere, with people expressing feelings of anxiety and unwholesome sensation as they pass. The spot is rumoured to be haunted by one of the murderers, still begging for forgiveness and mercy:

 

[David Plankton]

... Winter's Gibbet?

http://www.northumberland-cam.com/winters-gibbet/

 

[skinny]

Speaking of gibbets (is there a thread for those?),

Bizarre: A family day out in the early 20th century at a former hanging post known as Winter's Gibbet, on Steng Cross, Elsdon, Northumberland. Named after one William Winter who was hanged at Newcastle's Westgate in 1792 for murder and whose body was subsequently displayed as a warning to all

Some cool ole time pics of people taking the piss for the camera way back in the olden days.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...graphs-prove-ve-messing-camera-100-years.html

 

[Frideswide]

What is the difference between gibbets and gallows? is it that one is a display rack and the other is a killing machine?

 

[Krepostnoi]

What is the difference between gibbets and gallows? is it that one is a display rack and the other is a killing machine?

Good question. Gibbet Street in Halifax is apparently where the last guillotine to operate in England was situated. Hence "From Hell [obvious], Hull [press gangs] and Halifax [close shaves], may the good Lord preserve us!" I don't know that the body was then left on display, though.

Isn't a gallows specifically for hanging people from the neck until dead?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... What is the difference between gibbets and gallows? is it that one is a display rack and the other is a killing machine?

It's not a crystal-clear difference, at least not in light of historical usage.

The Oxford Dictionaries still lists 'A gallows' as the top-level definition for 'gibbet'.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gibbet

The Online Etymology Dictionary notes the two terms were originally synonyms.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/gibbet

This synonymous status has faded in more modern usage, where most often 'gallows' is taken to mean the execution site and 'gibbet' is taken to mean where the executed's remains were displayed.

 

[Frideswide]

Interesting. Is one french and teh other anglo saxon or something?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Interesting. Is one french and teh other anglo saxon or something?

Yes. 'Gibbet' was derived from French, whereas 'gallows' traces back through a Germanic lineage to Proto-Indo-European.

 

[Frideswide]

 

[Mouldy13]

Good question. Gibbet Street in Halifax is apparently where the last guillotine to operate in England was situated. Hence "From Hell [obvious], Hull [press gangs] and Halifax [close shaves], may the good Lord preserve us!" I don't know that the body was then left on display, though.

Isn't a gallows specifically for hanging people from the neck until dead?

There's a pub in Pellon Lane in Halifax called The Running Man, the story is that if you could get your head out of the way of the blade when the pin was pulled and run over the town boundary situated at Hebble brook you were then free.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Just looked it up. Rather nice headstone:

https://www.robingibb.com/news/robins-headstone-in-place

And good that he is here, not in LA. I think he was involved in one of the druid groups? Hence Avebury, I guess?

 

[catseye]

Apparently these couples had to have neighbours willing to back up that they hadn't been shouting at each other! ..

Some of my best arguments with my ex husband were held in that kind of 'don't let the neighbours know' passive-aggressive hiss. Everyone around would probably have sworn we never argued at all!

We rarely did, actually. He just told me what to do, and I did it.

So we would have been eating bacon sandwiches forever, eyeballing one another evily and silently annexing the brown sauce.

 

[Swifty]

We rarely did, actually. He just told me what to do, and I did it.

No offense to you (or him) but it sounds like a good thing he's your ex .. the Mrs is very stubborn and so am I (we're both Taurus if you believe in that sort of thing) but neither of us dominate each other on a daily basis .. we both know that when either of us finally puts our foot down, we'll both submit and do what the other one wants (with a bit of grumbling). Two bulls facing off to each other would get way too nasty otherwise.

 

[Krepostnoi]

There's a pub in Pellon Lane in Halifax called The Running Man, the story is that if you could get your head out of the way of the blade when the pin was pulled and run over the town boundary situated at Hebble brook you were then free.

I can't tell you how much I love that explanation, thank you. Much better than my baffled Stephen King tie-ins. Got to confess I always managed to resist the temptation to call in for a pint - is it even still a going concern (the pub, I mean, not the gibbet)?

 

[maximus otter]

There's a pub in Pellon Lane in Halifax called The Running Man, the story is that if you could get your head out of the way of the blade when the pin was pulled and run over the town boundary situated at Hebble brook you were then free.

There’s a pub in Lincoln named the Strugglers after those who didn’t escape, and experienced a rather less than “Dream Topping”.

maximus otter

 

[Mouldy13]

I can't tell you how much I love that explanation, thank you. Much better than my baffled Stephen King tie-ins. Got to confess I always managed to resist the temptation to call in for a pint - is it even still a going concern (the pub, I mean, not the gibbet)?

The clientele are, well, characters!!!! It fits nicely with this thread, I once drove past it at 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon and they were fighting in the road!!!!

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Somewhere I wrote about playing a game of cricket in a tiny remote village in Norfolk that had pretty much the same vibe to it.... north and West Norfolk are regions that have the same sense of remoteness to them that you're describing in Scotland, one of the few areas of England where you're on the margins, at the edge, with small population centres bypassed by everywhere else, a land which time forgot. Is this a manifestation of the same phenomenon? I want to find those original postings now; I recall the place wasn't an impossible distance away from the Royal weekend cottage at Sandringham and speculated about it having a royal warrant to provide village idiots to the Crown...

True about Norfolk. I was there for a few months and got to know a farmer who had built his own hardcore road across a large field so he could drink in the bar of the local hotel and drive home.

 

[catseye]

No offense to you (or him) but it sounds like a good thing he's your ex .. the Mrs is very stubborn and so am I (we're both Taurus if you believe in that sort of thing) but neither of us dominate each other on a daily basis .. we both know that when either of us finally puts our foot down, we'll both submit and do what the other one wants (with a bit of grumbling). Two bulls facing off to each other would get way too nasty otherwise.

Thanks Swifty. That was the ex that I kicked out, leaving me to bring up five kids alone. It was still better than being belittled and patronised on a daily basis!