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Now I have guilt over possible disrespect shown to Mr Gibb, his family and his fans and the good people of Thame welcoming their local lad home. Still don't like the stone but everyone deals with grief differently. My parents' headstone simply has their name and year of birth and death - below my father's is the legend 'Farmer' and below my mother's is 'Farmer's Wife'.
 
A few miles from me is the village of Bierton - not creepy, but has a forlornness common with many once-isolated villages that are now on the outskirts of an ever expanding town (ie the Black Hole of Aylesbury). Bierton has the honour of being the site of the last gibbet in Bucks (Hidden Buckinghamshire: Jean Archer). In 1773 a man called Corbet forced entry into a cottage, accompanied by his dog, and killed the occupier - but left his dog shut in behind. The Constable next morning let the dog out and followed it to his Master, who was duly condemned and hanged. After the hanging the body was encased in irons and strung up on the arm of the gibbet (whose post was 18 feet high) as a deterrent and subsequent tourist attraction. Despite numerous complaints from Villagers of the sight outside their bedroom windows (and the smell), the corpse remained in the gibbet for another 20 years. Finally in 1795 all that was left was the skull and the irons creaking in the wind and when the irons were worn away, the skull was kicked into a ditch and part of the gibbet used as a gatepost.
I've got a rough idea where the gibbet would have been sited, just need to see if I can get access.
 
What an interesting account Bad Bungle! If you ever find the site let us know if it has left any vibes!

Sollywos x
 
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In 1773 a man called Corbet forced entry into a cottage, accompanied by his dog, and killed the occupier - but left his dog shut in behind. The Constable next morning let the dog out and followed it to his Master, who was duly condemned and hanged. . . . the corpse remained in the gibbet for another 20 years. Finally in 1795 all that was left was the skull and the irons creaking in the wind and when the irons were worn away, the skull was kicked into a ditch and part of the gibbet used as a gatepost.
Yeech! Brr! Glad I didn't live there! Callous place!

I think Corbet was framed. How can you forget your own dog?
 
Yeech! Brr! Glad I didn't live there! Callous place!

I think Corbet was framed. How can you forget your own dog?

My dog frequently follows me into rooms.She's terrier-sized and inclined to hide under blankets/throws etc. I come out of the room and she's still in there. I sometimes don't notice her missing for quite a while (she, in the meantime, is curled up underneath something, so I don't even see her if I look round the rooms I've been in) and it can take a bit of calling before she actually emerges and comes to me.

So I can see how it's possible, Corbet was busy killing the occupier, probably didn't even realise the dog had come inside with him. Dog was probably in the kitchen, checking if it could open the door to the pantry...
 
I think Corbet was framed. How can you forget your own dog?

Corbet was a combined Chimney Sweep and Rat-catcher ie he had a long brush and a good ratting-dog. The terrier was trained to enter a house and flush out and/or kill any vermin within. In one account, Corbet found a ladder and entered the upper room of the farm cottage (still exists) through the chimney he'd previously swept and killed the occupant. He then left through the front door, but as it was night he didn't see his dog waiting outside. The dog rushed in to do its expected ratting duties before the oblivious Corbet closed the door behind him. When the dog was tracked back to his Master, some of the stolen possessions were found on him ie I don't think he was framed.

Out of interest, I have just found the blacksmith's bill for making the gibbet. I'm not sure what the tenter hooks were used for - driven into the gibbet post to prevent anyone scaling it ?

https://screenshots.firefox.com/vnBs6coOPiT5av1r/books.google.co.uk
Link is dead. See later post for a replacement specimen.
 
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Got out of my chair on Thursday and went to Wickham Market near Woodbridge in Suffolk - not a creepy small village at all, it was lovely in fact but with time slowed down. Nearby was Potsford Wood which had contained the remains of a Gibbet post (according to interweb) last used in 1699. Not too surprising for the Witch-burning-hanging-drowning-whipping capital of England, Suffolk has many places of interest, but there are very few genuine sites of hanging and gibbeting that are still visible today. With no GPS smart phone or proper map, the adventure was in finding the wood, finding somewhere to park (my brother cannot walk far) and then finding the post.
Took an educated guess, parked on the verge, walked for 5 minutes.

Jonah Snell, double axe murderer, dragged up the hill (Drag Arse Hill) on his back, hanged and put in a gibbet cage (1699) for 40 years and then buried nearby. As for the atmosphere 320 years later, well there are very recent Youtube clips with 'Wooo' meters and psychic readings at night (I did not not touch anything or take a souvenir, the plaque is a stock photo) and such a site HAS to have the obligatory ghost stories. But for me, I'd gone to look for an old post and found it, 125 miles from home in a deserted wood on a sunny Work day - my brother and me were grinning like idiots for the next 15 miles.



Gibbet0152A.jpg Gibbet0147B.jpgGibbet0150C.jpg Potsford Gibbet2.JPG
 
They gibbeted his corpse for 40 years, seems like overkill...

Different pace of life in them parts, took 45 minutes to make my BLT and latte. Guess the gibbet was off the road and away from the village so there were few complaints about the sight and smell. Also everyone was waiting for the next axe murders so the cage could be re-used with a new body - eventually gave up.
 
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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.

Footpath2487a.jpg Footpath2488a.jpg Footpath2490a.jpg Footpath2491a.jpg
 
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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Fascinating, Bungle, thanks for posting.

You heard of the Halifax Gibbet? (Actually a sort of guillotine)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Gibbet
 
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).

Hello Bad Bungle, I found this, which has a grid reference, if that's any help:
https://ubp.buckscc.gov.uk/HBSMRGateway/LibraryLinkFiles/26462.pdf
Looking at a map from 1870, the now big field used to be two fields, so that reference is the centre of the little field that was Corbet's Piece.
 
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You heard of the Halifax Gibbet? (Actually a sort of guillotine)...

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

New one on me, a gibbet is apparently any instrument of public execution (Wiki), but gibbeting refers to the practice of shoving the dead crim in a suspended body cage (for 20 years in the case of Bierton and 40 years for the Potsford gibbet). This seems inordinately cruel to the family and relatives of the condemned and also served as an unwelcome reminder to the family of the victim. After the Anatomy Act of 1832, hanged bodies were sent straight to the Medical hospitals for dissection.

gibbet.jpg
 
New one on me, a gibbet is apparently any instrument of public execution (Wiki), but gibbeting refers to the practice of shoving the dead crim in a suspended body cage (for 20 years in the case of Bierton and 40 years for the Potsford gibbet). This seems inordinately cruel to the family and relatives of the condemned and also served as an unwelcome reminder to the family of the victim. After the Anatomy Act of 1832, hanged bodies were sent straight to the Medical hospitals for dissection.

View attachment 23212

Not entirely relevant but... Recently, I was researching an 1830's burking case ('burking' as in 'Burke and Hare'), and one of the key things that caught the burkers were the secondhand clothes they took from their victims and sold on the rag markets in London. No bodies as they'd gone to dissectionists - but the secondary income stream was hawking the victims' clothing. And although one of them got convicted for one murder - they were suspected of a great number, sometimes clothing they sold on was attributable to missing people. They had no one type of victim - anyone; male, female, 84 year old and 8 year old, victims alike.

I research clothing of ordinary people in the past and sometimes court cases' descriptions of clothing are really useful. Anyway - the outcome was, the burker was hanged and one perk of being an executioner was to get the executed person's clothing which they could then sell off to the highest bidder. These days they'd be straight on eBay. And this woman - her clothing ended up on a waxwork of her. Apparently the little travelling waxwork exhibitions often bought murderers' clothing. The burker was herself dissected by a dissentionist...
 
New one on me, a gibbet is apparently any instrument of public execution (Wiki), but gibbeting refers to the practice of shoving the dead crim in a suspended body cage (for 20 years in the case of Bierton and 40 years for the Potsford gibbet). This seems inordinately cruel to the family and relatives of the condemned and also served as an unwelcome reminder to the family of the victim.
I keep thinking I should be past such things, but I'm always amazed and disturbed at how cruelly grotesque some people's idea of justice can be. Power I suppose. So easy to lose one's perspective.
 
My neck of the woods! I believe they were hanged first, and then gibbeted. I have a little book somewhere, I'll check.
Well I found my book but it only says "the murderers were subsequently taken to Guildford New Gaol. Six months later they were tried at Kingston and on Saturday, 7th April 1787, two days after the trial, they were hung in chains on a triple gibbet close to the scene of the crime at Hindhead."

However, I suspect they were hanged at Kingston.
 
One that you can process three people at once on? or is that too simplistic?

Are multiples common? and what is the biggest?

The Lore of the Land by Westwood and Simpson:

'Surrey people used to boast that this was the only gibbet in the country to have displayed three bodies at once, and that part of the Punch Bowl has ever since been known as Gibbet Hill.'

Well I found my book but it only says "the murderers were subsequently taken to Guildford New Gaol. Six months later they were tried at Kingston and on Saturday, 7th April 1787, two days after the trial, they were hung in chains on a triple gibbet close to the scene of the crime at Hindhead."

However, I suspect they were hanged at Kingston.
Also The Lore of the Land:

'...it was not long before they were caught and hanged, and their tarred corpses gibbeted at the scene of their crime.'
 
A 19th century writer (forget who for the moment) said he'd spoken to an elderly woman who as a youngster had been present at the execution of the three Hindhead murderers (who as you pointed out above were hanged then gibbeted- the latter was a posthumous punishment). She said that after the men were dead and cut down, it was found the irons didn't fit, so everyone including the corpses had to decamp to a local blacksmith for some adjustments. Apparently there were large crowds and in the general, er, 'festive' atmosphere she accidentally trod on one of the dead men's heads.
 
Similar to an account by H Rider Haggard (King Solomons Mines etc) in his non-fiction book "A Farmer's Year" 1899 : he was digging on West Bradenham common (part of his father's estate in Norfolk) and found chains, an iron hook and most of a gibbeting cage. The portion of skull still encased showed scorch marks by a hot iron, which Henry took to mean the cage was soldered/welded to fit the body post mortem. The purpose of the gibbeting cage was to deny a Christian or proper burial - I've read of accounts where it was the measuring up for the cage in the condemned man's cell that 'broke' the prisoner. Anyway, the unfortunate was almost certainly Stephen Watson (also referred to as Walton), hanged 25th March 1795 for the murder of his wife Elisabeth and displayed in gibbet cage for 26 years. An old family friend of Rider Haggard used to tell the story that when young, she remembered the bones still swinging in the cage and a robin or starling had built it's nest in the vertebrae.
The Maids Head Pub on the crossroads overlooking Bradenham Heath with a fine view of the Gibbet opposite (Faden's map 1797) closed in 1957. The remains of the cage and chains are in the Norwich Museum.
 
There's a very interesting (if that's the right word) modern academic study of gibbeting in Britain available for free via Google Books. Among the other revelations are: it was very much an 18th century punishment, with the peak year for gibbeting being 1740; the sites of gibbets were never 'customary' but nearly always selected for a specific crime, usually for reasons of visibility or easy crowd management; and that gibbeting was generally disliked by sheriffs as it was very expensive, and they had to find the money from somewhere.

The conclusion seems to be that amongst Europeans, the British had a particular obsession with 'decent' treatment of the corpse after death, and that when there was a debate in the mid 18th century around rising murder rates and how this might be stopped, this was one solution lawmakers came up with.

For ghoulish completists, the book also lists every gibbeting from 1700 onwards!
 
Another thing mentioned in that book that I hadn't realised is that gibbeting was more common, and went on until later, in Ireland.

From my limited reading in Irish early modern history this would make sense as, even compared to the English and Scottish upper classes, the Anglo-Irish landowning / administrative class seem to have been a particularly reactionary bunch of hang-'em-and-flog-'em philistines.
 
Incidentally I did try and see if there were any gibbetings recorded in Buckinghamshire - we have:

Thomas Marsh and Richard Marshall, Rye Common, Chepping Wycombe, 1736
Benjamin Randall, Loudwater, 1740
George Davis, Holtspur Heath, 1755

All these are in the right sort of area to maybe locate 'Gyb Farm', if it ever really existed.
 
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Incidentally I did try and see if there were any gibbetings recorded in Buckinghamshire - we have:

Thomas Marsh and Richard Marshall, Rye Common, Chepping Wycombe, 1736
Benjamin Randall, Loudwater, 1740
George Davis, Holtspur Heath, 1755

All these are in the right sort of area to maybe locate 'Gyb Farm', if it ever really existed.
I know this area quite well so will do some research to see if I can find out where, and if, it existed.
 
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