Custom
The Graveley Grinders
Court a Graveley girl from another parish, and the smithy's grindstone awaits.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- The village; the smithy is lost
- Legend from
- 1800s
- Tone
- Light-hearted
Watch yourself in Graveley: lads from other parishes caught courting the local girls had their backsides ground at the smithy.
In the old courting days, some Hertfordshire villages kept their young people close to home. Neighbouring Weston encouraged its residents to marry within the parish, and such couples were known as Weston Partners. Graveley was fiercer still. Its people were nicknamed the Graveley Grinders, because if a lad from Weston or any other foreign parish was caught walking out with a Graveley girl, the village lads hauled him to the smithy and ground his backside on the grindstone. Graveley also appears in the tale of the Six Hills, as the place where the Devil's seventh clod knocked the church steeple askew.
One sourceOnly one written account of this legend has been found so far.