Caxton Gibbet

In the olden days public executions were commonplace throughout Britain. Most gallows have since been removed – but one of the few remaining gibbets stands near the Cambridgeshire settlement of Caxton. The site is steeped in legend and mystery.

The gibbet stands at the old crossroads on Ermine Street (the A1198), about a mile away from Caxton, a former market town.

Three men hung for stealing sheep were buried at the site, which serves as a macabre reminder of old-fashioned justice. [Cambridgeshire Genealogy]

William Cobbett, travelling through the area on January 22, 1822, described the landscape surrounding the village as “bleak and comfortless”.

He wrote in his journal: “Just on the most dreary part of this most dreary scene, stands almost opportunely, Caxton Gibbet, tendering its friendly one arm to the passers-by. It has recently been fresh-painted, and written on in conspicuous characters, for the benefit, I suppose, of those who cannot exist under the thought of wheat at four shillings a bushel.” [A Vision of Britain Through Time]


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Alternative theories

According to Angela Bloom of the Cambridge Paranormal Research Society, the Caxton Gibbet was a replica of another set of gallows used in the village common. She says criminals were thrown into a cage, hung from the gibbet arm, and left to starve. “The body would remain suspended for some time after death as a warning to others.”

There are a number of stories surrounding those said to have died on the gibbet. The most famous centred around the alleged murder and robbery of the Partridge family in Bourn in the Eighteenth Century. After fleeing to America, the culprit was said to have returned to Caxton, boasting about his actions after getting drunk at the local inn. He was sentenced to starve in the cage. [Cambridge Paranormal Society]

Another legend has it that a nearby pub is haunted by “phantom footsteps”. An old landlord had meant to rob one of the guests. The landlord panicked when the victim woke up and killed the guest instead. He then had to murder two other guests who had witnessed the botched robbery. [Mysterious Britain Gazetteer]

Matchan's Gibbet

In another part of Cambridgeshire, the body of a soldier who murdered a drummer boy was left dangling from a gibbet in the hope that it would deter others from committing similar crimes.

Matchan’s Gibbet, as it was known, stood for a long time beside the Great North Road between Alconbury and Brampton Hut in Huntingdonshire.

The gallows were named after Gervase Matchan, a Yorkshireman who murdered drummer boy Benjamin Jones on the same spot in 1780.

The Dead Drummer Boy

The two had been serving in the same infantry regiment when Matchan was ordered to accompany the drummer boy to Diddington Hall to get some money.

The boy, aged about 15, received about £7 in gold, and the two set off towards Huntingdon, stopping in Alconbury for the night en route on 18 August 1780.

As the pair were passing through woods, Matchan decided to rob the boy of his gold.

Before seizing the money, he slit the boy’s throat and left him dying as he continued on his journey to Stilton and Wansford, where he bought a fresh set of clothes. Matchan then headed to his mother’s home in Fradlingham in Yorkshire.

By the time the drummer boy’s body was found, Matchan was on board a naval ship.

Only six years later did he confess to his crime – after reportedly seeing the ghost of the dead drummer boy  on the side of a road.

Following a trial at Huntingdon Assizes, Matchan was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.

Afterwards his body was dangled from chains at the spot where the murder was committed.
 

Sources

 

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