Alan Robson - Nightmare on your Street

[dem bones]

Alan Robson - Nightmare on your Street: More Grisly Trails and Ghostly Tales (Virgin, 1993)

Author's photo: Date Foster

Introduction

1. The North (Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, Durham)
The Dirty Bottles of Alnwick – The Brigand of Bardon Mill - Beadnell: Where There's Life There's Hope, When There's Death? - Warning in Bedlington - The Barber of Belford - The Bellingham Pedlar - The Murdered Minstrel of Bellister Castle - The Lord Crewe Arms, Blanchland - The White Lady of Blenkinsopp Castle - Buckton's Grizel – The Divelstons of Dilston - The Featherstone Phantom - Murder at Knarsdale Hall - Haughton Castle's Man Who Ate Himself - The Black Bitch of Black Heddon - The Hexham Extraterrestrials - The Ghost Battle of Langley - Nafferton Castle and Welton Hall, Cursed For Ever - The Norman of Prudhoe Castle - The Saltskin of Seghill – Tricky Dicky of Staward - Who Walks at Warksworth - The Gateshead Grunt - The Terrifying Trio of Houghton le Spring - The Black Magic Woman and the Geordie - The Disco-Dancing Monk of Newcastle - The Hoppings' Head Boy - Newcastle's Phantom of the Theatre - Wherever You Go You’re Sure to Find a Geordie - Newcastle's Willie Watcher - The Phantom of Windows Arcade, Newcastle – The Vikings of Rowlands Gill - The Rudchester Roman - The Jackhammer Man of South Shields – The Ebchester Incineration - The Hawk of High Force - Man Eater of Seaham - None Shall Sleep at Willington Mill

2. Northern England to the Midlands (Yorkshire, Humberside, Lancashire and Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire)
The Bloody Footprint of Oakwell Hall, Birstall – The Bradford Groper - Leathery Coit of Elland - The Godless in Goathland - The York Romans - The Cottingham Wolf Man - The Blackpool Witches - A Direct Line to the Other Side - Ghost Rider in theSky - Blazing Betty of Manchester - Oldham's Unwell Well Woman - The Skull of Wardley Hall - The Lime Street Beetle-Eater - The School Terror - The Headless Woman of Duddon, Cheshire - The Ghosts of Hardwick Hall - The Oldest Inn in all England - The Lincoln Eagle - Lincoln's Ghost Hotel

3. West Central England (Staffordshire, Shropshire, West Midlands, Hereford & Worcester, Warwickshire)
The Madman of Burton-upon-Trent - The Ludlow Dolly Bird - The Shrewsbury Ninjas - The Butchered Babies of Birmingham - Tutankhamun's Birmingham Curse - The Severed Hand of Coventry - The Lost Legend of the Hereford Wurm - The Worcester Bluebeard - The Phantom Coach of Rugby

4. The East Midlands and East Anglia (Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk)
The Althorp Candlesnatcher - Tom, the Peeper of Corby - Reborn, One of History's Most Evil Men - Mary Queen of Scots in Oundle - A Bit of Rough Luck - The Gibbet at Caxton - Unrequited Love, Holywell - Cromwell at St Ives - Vengeance on Acle Bridge - The Ghost Pub of Horning - The Noose of Bildeston

5. The Cotswolds to the Thames (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Greater London)
Bossy Betty, the Good Witch - The Oxford Lepers - The Datchworth Pieman - The Wicked Lady - The Basildon Thumber - The Brentwood Poltergeist - The Spider of Stock - The Bumblers of Hammersmith - The Capital of the Ghostly World - The Cockney Curser - Cooked to Death - The Ghastly Firefighter - The Ghosts of Drury Lane - The London Lovers - Turpin's Safe House

6. The South West (Avon, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall)
Black in Bath - The Flasher from Bath - The Poltergeist of Bath - Minehead's Whistling Widow - The Devil in the Parrett - The Dreaded Oak of Stogumber - The Taunton Fiddler - The Hand That Walks - The Hanged Man of Lyme Regis - The Crippled Children of Poole - The Dorset Vampire - Lawrence of Arabia, a Ghost in Waiting? - The Pilton Park Phantom, Barnstaple - Nelson and his Lady in Dawlish - The Bloody Monk of Exeter - The Woman Who Died Twice, Exeter - The Devon Highwayman - The Devil's Rolling Stone - The Pirate of the Jamaica Inn - The Helston Devils

7. The South East (Wiltshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Surrey, Sussex, Kent)
The Longleat Murderess - The Wiltshire Body Pit - The Hampshire Devil Dog - The Highwayman Captain Jacques - The Phantom of Winchester - A Demon's Hands - The Surrey Puma - The Witches of Guildford - The Headless Ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh - The Bognor Banjax - The Real Scarlet Pimpernel - The Rye Owlers Too Disgusting for Hell

8. Wales
The Ripper of Abergavenny - The Trefachan Dancer - Home or a Haunting, Conwy - The Man Who Loved the Dead - The Warning Mist of Llandeilo - The Fairy Tree of Maesteg - The Grave of the Partly Innocent - The Welsh Aliens

9. Scotland
The Burning Soldier of Aberdeen – Aberdeen's Union Street Clencher - The Dragon of Arbroath - The Stumphand of Ayr - The Phantom Teacher of Tayside - The Crying Girl of Princes Street, Edinburgh - The 'Well-Hung' Englishman - The Glamis Secret - Galleon of Lost Souls – The Ghost of King Duncan - The Strathclyde Strangler

10. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland
The Land of the Giants, Not the Leprechauns - Ireland's Dead Centre - Dublin's Phantom - The Clare Head Hunter - Cacky Collins, The Killer Leprechaun? - The Kilkenny Lovers - Prophet of Irish Doom

Blurb:
Prepare to follow me on another teeth-chattering tour of terror through the shadowy world of phantoms, demons, legend and mystery... Shudder at the sinister secrets of city, town and village; marvel at the magical lore of bygone ages and gasp at the ghastly ghouls of our own time. Travel with me the length and breadth of the land, and listen to over 150 spine-chilling tales from everyday folk as they reveal an awful array of spooks, spirits and sepulchral horrors. Tremble at the truth of the Hereford Wurm and Tutankhamen's Birmingham Curse. Hear the secret of the Devil's Stone and the Demon's Hands. Shiver at the salted man of Seghill, and brace yourself for the baffling Poltergeist of Bath. Do you dare open the book and begin...?

In 1967 a ghost monk 'with bloody eyeless sockets' was spotted by almost an entire coach party parked near the River Exe. One lady in her seventies had to be taken to hospital for shock.

Initial impression is that this is the book Mr. Felix's The People's Ghost Story should have been had he trusted in an editor. Mr. Robson prefers his ghost's horrible and macabre or, failing that, sexually depraved. 150 plus is plenty to get through, so will start with some that particularly caught this reader's interest and see if that takes us anywhere.


The Murdered Minstrel of Bellister Castle: Said to haunt the woods by the River Tyne. Pick the right day, and you'll witness a spectral re-enactment of his terrible end. The young lute-strummer was hunted down and torn to pieces by a pack of hounds for having it away in the rose garden with his Lordship's young wife. "The only part of his face that remained remotely recognisable was his beard."

The Cottingham Wolfman: Francis Clayton (flourished early seventeenth century). Jolly boatman by day, voracious eater of men, woman and children by night. He is claimed to have devoured over eighty people before he made the mistake of showing off an infant's severed head to his rowing mate. Exposed as a cannibal and/ or werewolf, one version of the outcome has it that he was committed to a madhouse, the other — which also involves his spewing a child's hand in court — has him hanged in the woods near Swine.

The Basildon Thumber: Vanishing hitch-hiker dressed in jeans and t-shirt, blonde hair in bangs. Alison was knocked down by a truck driver near the Wicklow roundabout while hitching to Southend.

The Ludlow Dolly Bird: Ghost of Jayne Jones, an outrageous dresser even for the free-lovin' sixties, who travelled to London to hang out with pop stars like Freddie & the Dreamers. Alas, her visit to coincided with the 1966 FA Cup final. Legging it from jubilant Everton fans, Jayne was knocked down by a taxi. She survived - at the cost of her legs. Paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, Jayne's astral self took over where she left off. The glamour girl was regularly sighted bustling about Shropshire trendiest venues and boutiques until her suicide the following decade.

Tom, The Peeper of Corby: "The sex mad spectre" of the Knight's Lodge Inn is that of Tom the cobbler, voyeur and would-be rapist, roasted alive in a forge of red-hot coals by a blacksmith who caught him ogling his wife. Even agonizing death could not curb Tom's lust for the ladies, and 250 years later, our unashamed sex pest gropes on regardless.

The Datchworth Pieman: The gruesome ghost of Clibbon the butcher, tied to a horse, dragged through the streets and skinned alive for theft. A message boy delayed delivery of a Royal pardon so as not to spoil the fun.

The Featherstone Phantom: Sir Reginald FitzUrse, sadist, murderer and rapist, locked up in a tower to slowly starve to death. Him being a resourceful fellow, it took three months. "The ghost of the knight can still be heard most nights at Featherstone Phantom, walking across the floor, emitting deathly groans, and hammering on doors and walls."

The Shrewsbury Ninjas: The green fields are prowled by a Japanese assassin, still seeking the head he lost at close of an otherwise successful search and destroy mission in Salop over three hundred and fifty years ago.

Ghosts of Drury Lane: The floating face of Joe Grimaldi and a waiter who walks through walls. Surprisingly, no mention of W. Macqueen-Pope's perennial favourite, 'the man in grey.'

The Wicked Lady: In 1965 the ghost of Lady Katherine Ferrers, highwaywoman, inadvertently provided picnicking Mr. Harry J. Lewis and his children a cheap thrill. Oblivious to her audience, 'The wicked lady' entered a copse, stripped off her dress and donned male attire in readiness for her next "stand and deliver!"

The Butchered Babies of Birmingham: In 1982, Michael & Gillian Bryant's new build two bed semi was subjected to an outbreak of furniture-destroying poltergeist activity. Their home was built on the site of a house where, eighty years earlier, two children were murdered. The restless spirit, that of the victims' mother, was persuaded to leave by a sympathetic spiritualist medium.

The Bradford Groper: By the time of his death in 1979, young Douglas Smith had been banned from all but one of the district's cinemas and theatres for boob-grabbing, bum-pinching, and, generally pestering young women. The ABC were also upset at his taking a very public dump in the front row. Eventually only the Cine Central on Cheapside would accept his custom, and it was on leaving their screening of The Maltese Falcon that he was knocked down and killed by a furniture van. Doug's ghost simply picked up where his corporeal self left off until the night he lifted a girl's skirt at the ABC on Charles Street while his mum was in attendance. One stiff talking to later, the abashed ghost was vanquished.

The Longleat Murderess: The ancestral home of the Marquesses of Bath. The resident Green Lady (some sources are adamant she wears grey) is said to be the spectre of Lady Louise Carteret, whose husband's bones were recovered from a trench beneath the cellar long after his alleged killer had gone to her grave.

[Swampirella]

At risk of sinking lower in your estimation, this is one of my favorite books.

[dem bones]

Sept 14, 2022 16:32:33 GMT Swampirella said:

At risk of sinking lower in your estimating, this is one of my favorite books, as is the sequel, "Nightmare on Your Street: More Grisly Trails".

This one is Nightmare on your Street. Have just posted details of Grisly Trails & Ghostly Tales (the covers are too similar). I agree with you. His ghost books are class.

[Swampirella]

Hope you enjoy them both, at least more than the Felix book.

[helrunar]

I don't think I am likely ever to read the book (I'm not sure even where I would find it), but the pouty ginger on the cover is very pretty. Was he in the film version?

H.

[dem bones]

Sept 14, 2022 19:18:40 GMT Swampirella said:

Hope you enjoy them both, at least more than the Felix book.

You set a very low bar.

In the early 1970's a group of children were in the area doing a project on the West Somerset Railway, when the teacher made a detour to the tree. Four of the children happened to stand under the tree, and soon all four began to turn purple, as if they were being choked. The teacher put them straight back on to the minibus and left immediately.

The Hexham Extraterrestrials: Did Chupacabras attack livestock and make away with entire skeletons at various British locations over the winter of 1904-5?

The Newcastle Willie Watcher: A lurking nuisance in the gents' toilet of the pub formerly known as the Cordwainer's on Nelson Street. A change of name seems to have got rid of the creep.

Haughton Castle's Man Who Ate Himself: Archie Armstrong, Scots renegade, locked up in the castle dungeon by order of Sir Thomas Swinburne and either forgotten or deliberately left to starve. Little wonder that what was left of the clansman once he'd eaten his arms and legs should scream down the centuries until successfully exorcised.

The Dreaded Oak of Stugumber: The Heddon Oak in Somerset where, in 1685, forty-eight of Monmouth's rebels were hung on the order of James II, their dangling corpses left to rot. Those who stand underneath complain of constriction of the throat.

The Taunton Fiddler: Sentenced to be hanged for uttering a proscribed opinion — "That King James is a queer 'un" — Tom requested the magistrate that he be allowed to allow him to play as he hung. The throttled fiddler's extended version of Jig-a-Jig continued even as his corpse swung lifeless from the gallows.

Warning in Bedlington: A harbinger of death in the uniform of a soldier in the Great War. Should he appear before you and stare, a neighbour will die.

The Ebchester Incineration: During the 1760s, Robert Johnson, a rich Ebchester landowner, disinherited his errant son, only to reinstate him five years later when the lad proved he'd quit drinking and whoring. Unfortunately, in temper, Johnson had uttered a rash oath. "May my right arm burn away before I give my son sixpence."

The Black Bitch of Black Heddon: A woman in a black gown, spooking horses to throw their riders on country lanes. Believed to be ghost of an eighteenth century bogus charity-collector, trampled to death by two huntsmen when her vile deception was exposed.

The Strathclyde Strangler: A woman motorist calls at a police station complaining of being followed home from work. The guilty party pursues her inside. He means no harm. He's been trying to alert her to a stowaway in the back seat of her car. The enduring urban legend relocated (?) to '60s Glasgow.

Tutankhamun's Birmingham Curse: A scarab brooch, purchased for £67 at the St. Martin's Circus flea market in 1970, brings fatal accident, disease and/ or gory death to those who, very briefly, presume to own it. The item was among the treasures looted from the boy king's tomb by the Carter expedition in November 1922. As far as is known, it is still in circulation.

[dem bones]

Too Disgusting for Hell: "He was claimed once to have hacked a horse to death with a sword because it dropped its dung while he was on its back..... He set fire to one of his farmworkers' house because he had sneezed while in his presence. He destroyed another man's coach because it was polished brighter than his own ..."

What finally did for the Earl of Rochester was a visit to his Newington manor house by three churchmen, who surprised him in the middle of rogering a nun. Condemned as a heretic, the wicked Earl was dropped down a sixty-foot dry well and left to starve. His amorous partner was bricked up alive.

The Lost Legend of the Hereford Worm: "Unhand those women lest I strike ye dead, varlets!" How, in AD 372, Merlin raised a dragon versus a gang of marauding murders, rapists and thieves, before banishing it to the fiery below. The wurm will return should Hereford again come under threat.

The Severed Hand of Coventry: A beast with five fingers stalks Coventry's bedrooms after dark, climbing the bedsheets, stroking women awake. Until the 1770s, it was still attached to a Frenchman falsely accused of attacking a prostitute. Jacques Theodore somehow survived eight years in the rat-infested hellhole that was city jail before release. A subsequent campaign to prove his innocence spilt gallons of blood, much of it his own.

Cromwell at St. Ives: The Lord Protector occasionally stirs from his grave to take a room at the Golden Lion or a stroll in the trees. Same hotel also home to a Lady in Green and an ashtray-lobbing poltergeist.

The Headless Ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh: Sir Walter from the neck down walks Old Carew House in Beddington, Surrey, possibly seeking the skull which eventually saw burial at West Horsley after several posthumous adventures; his widow reputedly kept it in a velvet bag and took it with her on journeys.

The Althorp Candlesnatcher: The Northampton stately home of the Spencer family these five centuries past, haunted by a butler who turns out any light left on once the household have retired to their beds.

The Flasher of Bath: A Roman soldier given to streaking through the town centre. According to eyewitness Mrs. Henderson of Torbay, "He was lovely and very well made."

The Dirty Bottles of Alnwick: Low key opener. A cursed window in a bakery turned 'Olde Worlde' pub presents a dilemma to staff.

The Welsh Aliens: Vale of Neath, 1856. Walking home from work, farmhand Roland Rhys entered "a fairy ring of light" - and lost an entire week of his life. Was the unfortunate youth enchanted by the little people - or could it be that he was a victim of alien abduction?

None Shall Sleep at Willington Mill: An unpopular property on account of a particularly obnoxious poltergeist, aka 'the madman in white.' Invisible trouble-maker is said to be ghost of a Quaker, a tyrant who beat his children bloody, sexually abusing the girls.

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

The Blackpool Witches is one that's always stuck in my memory from this very entertaining collection of tales.

[dem bones]

Sept 16, 2022 15:42:11 GMT The Lurker In The Shadows said:

The Blackpool Witches is one that's always stuck in my memory from this very entertaining collection of tales.

Yes, that's a nasty one! Something I find commendable is that, should there be differing versions of a story, he invariably opts for the bloodiest.

The Disco-Dancing Monk of Newcastle: Converted to Christianity in the Holy Land, Jusef, a Moorish giant, travelled to England to become a monk. Turned away from Blackfriars monastery, he was murdered by those he so desperately sought to emulate, once his charity toward fellow paupers exposed them for greedy. The monastery has long made way for La Dolce Vita nightclub, but Jusef's ghost doesn't seem to mind.

The Headless Woman of Duddon, Cheshire: "Over fifty sightings have been reported between 1900 and 1980." Set-upon and gang-raped by drunken Roundheads, Dorothy Vaughan was accidentally decapitated by her own father as he swung an axe at the soldier on top of her. Dorothy's ghost - most of it - wanders the lanes of Dubbon in a very bloodied purple dress.

The School Terror: Rainford, a Merseyside board school for girls in the 1850s. Repeatedly molested and beaten by her perverted teacher, Mr. R. V. Sinclair, fifteen-year-old Eve eventually confided in the head girl who reported the matter to the Principal. Eve vanished soon afterward. The site on which Rainford stood is now a pub, where Eve's ghost haunts the fireplace behind which Sinclair is said to have concealed her corpse.

Galleon of Lost Souls: Inveraray Castle, Argyll. Hanged in the 1600s for ogling her ladyship through a keyhole, a harpsichord player in perpetual residence dutifully strums on. A ghostly galleon sails on the Loch whenever the death of a chieftain is imminent.

The Phantom Coach of Rugby: Demon of the West Midland's, a one-armed, Drambuie-addled squire racing a jet-black carriage along country lanes, and G-- help the fool who stands in his way!

Ghost Rider in the Sky: The immediate countryside surrounding Wycoller Hall, Colne, is home to a phantom horseman on a black charger, a vengeful spirit locked in perpetual dispute with a centuries dead squire on whose command he was shot down with a crossbow. The bolt is embedded in the ghost rider's Adams apple.

Unrequited Love, Holywell: Promised to a rich old poultry man by her father, Juliet Toulsey, 19, had eyes only for her lover, handsome young Tom the woodsman. If only he'd set a date for their elopement. But fickle Tom had already decided he preferred another. Deserted by her first love and in despair at impending marriage to Fatso, Juliet hung herself from the willow tree she haunts to this day.

The Phantom Teacher: One night during a storm, Mr. Archibald Ford, the man who brought school education to Creiff, left his grave to correct a misspelling on the headstone.

The Worcester Bluebeard: Blackly comic cautionary tale of Richard Dunwoodie, a candidate for the seventeenth century's outstanding bigamist. Irresistible to women, handsome Dick's desperate attempts to extricate himself from nuisance past entanglements inevitably led to first one homicide, then another ... Dunwoodie confessed all on his deathbed, by which time he'd stuffed an attic with the corpses of murdered brides.

A Direct Line to the Other Side: When Cecilia Whittaker, spiritualist medium, received notice from her friends beyond that she'd shortly be joining them, she notified her sceptical daughter that she was "leaving tonight." Diana, thinking her dotty mum was taking a short break, made her promise to phone and let her know when she arrived. Several hours after she died, Cecilia did as requested.

[dem bones]

The Man Who Loved the Dead: Holywell, 1645. Ruth, beloved wife of John Henry, died of influenza. Fearful that his dear one would be taken from him, John reassured friends that Ruth was "at home in bed" — perfectly true, but, as the months wore on, no balms or lotions could halt the decay or mask the stench ....

When, the following year, a visiting farmer finally alerted the authorities, Ruth's maggot-ridden remains were removed and buried in the local graveyard. That same night, John dug her up again. When, the following morning, he was discovered asleep beside her coffin, the local menfolk jumped to ghastly conclusions and beat their suspected necrophiliac neighbour to death (alternative version has him accidentally impaled on a pitchfork).

Despite all, John was buried alongside his wife. Separate coffins, of course. But the story was not quite over ...

The Oxford Lepers: Horrific fate of a French prisoner during the Napoleonic Wars who escaped confinement in the Morgans' private leper colony to live wild in the fields, only to meet with a fatal accident with a plough .... All white and ghastly, the flesh eaten away from his face, poor Pierre has been sighted in the botanical gardens at Magdalen, and outside a café on Oxford High Street.

The Gibbet at Caxton: Of the site's multiple ghosts, Mr. Robson gives pride of place to seven-year-old Mary, hung amid much protest during the early years of the 18th century for the "murder" of a local nobleman named Ramsey; Mary's dog allegedly barked at his horse, causing it to throw Ramsey who broke his neck against a stone wall. Runner-up, the landlord of the nearest pub - The Caxton Gibbet, funny you should ask - who murdered and robbed a number of guests, disposing of their corpses down a well at the foot of the stairs.

The Trefachen Dancer: After a night out with friends in November 1988, Margaret Cooper, a little worse for drink, fell while dancing on the edge of the bridge over the River Rheidol. A non-swimmer, the young woman was swept away by the current. Margaret's body was never recovered, but her ghosts seems happy enough as she skips across the surface of the water.

The Madman of Burton-on-Trent: The rise, fall and resurrection-several-centuries-later of Jethro Orme, village idiot, eater of dogs and cats, and Wat Tyler tribute act, whose boast that he'd one day lead a second peasant's revolt was taken to heart by a twitchy King Richard II. The monarch despatched thirty-plus troops to discreetly silence Orme by burning him alive in the town square. A routine mission, but it cost the lives of several soldiers in the most freakish circumstances.

The Witches of Guildford: The Gould sisters, prolific 17th century child-murderers who buried the remains of the butchered in the vegetable patch and stacked the outhouse with skulls. The terrible trio shared Countess Bathory's supposed belief that bathing in blood kept them young, if not necessarily pleasing on the eye. Before they could be burnt alive on a bonfire, the ghoulish Gould's were set upon by the townsfolk and hacked to pieces.

The Bognor Banjax: How, in 1922, a gypsy's curse so nearly caused Roy Mickelwhite to smash in his newborn's skull with a shovel.

Cooked to Death: Hushed up tragedy/ urban legend involving a top London hotel, a trainee chef and one of them newfangled microwave ovens.

Ghost Pub at Horning: Returning home to Norfolk after several years in Brisbane, William Baxter and an Australian business partner spent a pleasant night getting drunk at his old local, The Ferry Inn, in the company of Peter 'Chalky' White the landlord and his regulars. Reunited with his parents the following day, William learned that The Ferry Inn was destroyed in a German bombing raid on 26 April 1941. Among the twenty-three casualties were Chalky and the home comer's fellow drinking companions of the previous evening.

The Saltskin of Seghill: On Henry V's sudden death, bands of drunken soldiers took advantage of the confusion to embark on a countrywide rampage. The keeper of Seghill tower was tasked with storing his neighbours' goods in the stronghold until the danger subsided. Tragically, for this poor, brave man, the tower proved anything but "impenetrable." The keeper fell into the clutches of blood crazed lunatics determined to make him suffer a slow, agonising death.

[Swampirella]

Sept 19, 2022 10:53:55 GMT dem bones said:

The Gibbet at Caxton: Of the site's multiple ghosts, Mr. Robson gives pride of place to seven-year-old Mary, hung amid much protest during the early years of the 18th century for the "murder" of a local nobleman named Ramsey; Mary's dog allegedly barked at his horse, causing it to throw Ramsey who broke his neck against a stone wall. Runner-up, the landlord of the nearest pub - The Caxton Gibbet, funny you should ask - who murdered and robbed a number of guests, disposing of their corpses down a well at the foot of the stairs.

The Gibbet at Caxton today:

[dem bones]

... and, via the invaluable Forgotten Pubs the 'Caxton Gibbet' in its prime.

"The Caxton Gibbet was situated on Ermine Street. This pub was used as a Chinese restaurant following closure. Now demolished."

[andydecker]

Love both fotos. The contemporary with the gibbet - is this really the original? - and McUgh would be the perfect place for a horror story. "They looked up from their happy meal and there he was swinging in the soft breeze ..."

[Swampirella]

Sept 19, 2022 14:50:25 GMT dem bones said:

... and, via the invaluable Forgotten Pubs the 'Caxton Gibbet' in its prime.

"The Caxton Gibbet was situated on Ermine Street. This pub was used as a Chinese restaurant following closure. Now demolished."

I love this photo too, thanks for finding and posting it!

[Swampirella]

Sept 19, 2022 15:32:39 GMT andydecker said:

Love both fotos. The contemporary with the gibbet - is this really the original? - and McUgh would be the perfect place for a horror story. "They looked up from their happy meal and there he was swinging in the soft breeze ..."

Turning it into a very "unhappy meal". I should have made the comment I'd thought of making about the horribleness of (a) McDonald's.

I don't know if there are any original gibbets in the UK left. This is from Wikipedia:

Caxton Gibbet is a small knoll[1] on Ermine Street (now the A1198) in England, running between London and Huntingdon, near its crossing with the road (now the A428) between St Neots and Cambridge. There are tales of murderers being hanged and displayed at the nearby village of Caxton in the 1670s, and records in a court case that the gibbet was still there in 1745. Several local writers say that it was no longer there by the early decades of the nineteenth century, but in January 1822, William Cobbett recorded seeing the gibbet in his "Huntingdon Journal" (published in his Political Register, vol. 41, no.4, 26 Jan. 1822), and in 1831 the Rev H.G. Watkins, whilst on a carriage tour of England, records passing, a mile from Caxton village, 'a gibbet on the roadside with an inscription, Caxton Gibbet'. There is a modern replica, which can be seen in photographs dating back to 1900,[2] the erection of which may have been connected with the nearby inn of the same name. 

If anybody wants to read more about gibbets (of course you do!) there's this free publication, which is quite readable.

link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-60089-9