Caxton Gibbet - Cambridgeshire
Posted by: 
Norfolk12
N 52° 13.710 W 000° 06.174
30U E 697852 N 5790408
The remains of the old Gibbet at the roundabout in Caxton Gibbet, years ago there used to be the iron cage rings to hold the body suspended here.
Waymark Code: WM8449
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/24/2010
Views: 6
"There are tales dating back to the nineteenth century of murderers being hanged and displayed at Caxton in the 1670’s, and record in a court case that the gibbet was still there in 1745. However, several local writers say that it had gone by the early decades of the nineteenth century.
There is presently a replica erected in modern times, which can be seen in photographs dating back to 1900. Its erection may have been connected with the nearby inn of the same name. [ This is now a chinese restaurant that suffered badly from a fire].
It is reputed to be a gruesome example of the cage variation of the gibbet into which live victims were placed until they died from starvation, dehydration or exposure. After execution dead bodies were certainly suspended in cages as a warning, and may have been here. There are a number of folk tales reported on various websites and in secondary sources of people being hanged at Caxton, none of which can be verified from primary sources. The most gruesome concerns the murder of a man called Partridge, either by a poacher or a man who thought Partridge had killed his dog. The murderer, sometimes after having escaped abroad for a period, boasted, or was otherwise detected of the crime and ordered to be gibbeted alive. In some versions a local baker who offers him bread suffers a similar fate. There is no contemporaneous record of anything that confirms any part of this story, either in court or burial records. Death by starvation was a punishment unknown to English Law, and the practical difficulties of enforcing it would be insuperable. There is no evidence of this practice anywhere in England.
Cambridgeshire County Record Office, which is part of Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies, says that the following entry in the manuscripts of William Cole, a Cambridgeshire antiquarian (1714-1782) has been taken to refer to the Caxton Gibbet although there is no more specific mention of the actual location in the text. He is clearly referring to a dead body.
"About 1753 or 1754 the son of Mrs. Gatward being convicted of robbing the Mail was hanged in chains on the Great Road. I saw him hanging in a scarlet coat after he had hung 2 or 4 months it is supposed that the screw was filed which supported him and that he fell in the first high wind after."
(some details from wikipedia)
Type of Historic Marker: Gibbet
Historical Marker Issuing Authority: Cambridgeshire County Record Office, which is part of Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies
Age/Event Date: 01/01/1800
Related Website: [Web Link]
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