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Folklore
| Adding on to the post below, I found this note of Burl's....... About three-quarters of a mile WSW of the Beekhampton roundabout on the south side of the road where the outline of the Roman road crosses the A4 there is an inconspicuous stone. It marks the place of a former gibbet. Around 1837 the Royal Mail coach was held up by a gang of highwaymen and the driver. Henry Castles, murdered. The robbers made off towards Beckhampton but meeting a drunken labourer, Walter Leader, they stunned him and dumped him and a pistol alongside the wrecked coach and dead driver. Conclusions were quickly reached and Leader was condemned to death. On a misty December morning he was taken to the gallows where the crime had been committed and hanged. Minutes later a horseman arrived with a reprieve. One of the highwaymen had confessed. Leader was taken down and buried beneath a lonely tree nearby. Burl, A., Prehistoric Avebury. Second Edition, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1979 Page 58 Maybe the ghost of Walter Leader has a thing about traffic. |
Posted by Chance7th December 2007ce Edited 7th December 2007ce
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Comments (1) |
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| nice find! maybe some places in the landscape really have got something weird about them. |
Posted by Rhiannon21st April 2008ce |
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