MysteryLegendary
The Dinton Hermit
Did the king's executioner hide in a Bucks cave?
Private, don't visit
- What's there
- Private hall; cave site not visible; shoe in Ashmolean
- Legend from
- 17th century
- Tone
- Dark history
Near Dinton: a clerk here may have swung the axe on King Charles, and spent his last years living in a cave, dressed in leather patches.
John Bigg, born in Dinton in 1629, was clerk to Simon Mayne, MP and one of the judges who condemned Charles I. Tradition holds that Bigg was one of the masked executioners on the scaffold in 1649. After the Restoration Mayne died in the Tower, and Bigg withdrew into a cave at Dinton, living there until 1696. He patched his clothes and shoes with countless scraps of leather, nailing new pieces over old, wore a strange horned cloak, and begged silently, asking only for leather. Some say he hid from royal revenge, others that remorse drove him underground. One of his enormous shoes is in the Ashmolean.