Outlaw
The Pie-Man's Post
A wooden post by the lane pins a staked highwayman in his grave.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A wooden post by the road, at the edge of a wood
- Legend from
- 1782
- Tone
- Dark history
Watch the edge of the wood for a tall wooden post. It marks where a pie-selling highwayman was shot in 1782 and staked into his roadside grave.
In the early 1780s a gang of robbers terrorised the roads around Hertford. Their leader turned out to be Walter Clibbon, who hawked pies around the inns and markets, overhearing which traders had done well. On 28 December 1782 he ambushed members of the Whittenbury family on their way home from Hertford market, and in the struggle a servant shot him dead. His body was paraded at a nearby inn, dragged back to the scene and buried by the roadside with a stake driven through it, a post marking the grave to stop his ghost from walking. A wooden post, renewed several times, still stands.