This is the eleventh in a series of events to bring us to some of the sites of correction used during the past in Derbyshire, with this one taking us to the stocks in the tiny hamlet of Uppertown, just south of Birchover.
The pillory & stocks are often confused. Stocks were designed to hold the feet, whilst a pillory would restrain the hands & the head of the criminal. Both were used throughout Medieval times to publicly humiliate wrongdoers & positioned in prominent places for maximum effect, although the punishment usually only lasted for a few hours. The person would be mocked & jeered by passers by & the criminal could also expect to be pelted with rotten vegetables & fruit or even worse. In 1351, the Statute of Labourers Act decreed that every town & village should maintain a set of stocks to punish "unruly artisans"! By 1494, The Vagabonds and Beggars Act stated that “Vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town.”
Uppertown stocks are believed to date from the 17th Century & are Grade II Listed. They were restored in 1951 by J. S. Heathcote, Curator as per the nearby plaque. They consist of two vertical gritstone piers with long grooves & two horizontal wooden planks, held together with a padlocked iron band. There are only two holes to hold legs, suggesting that the stocks were needed rather infrequently in this small lead mining community.
This short event will give us an opportunity to meet up safely outside for some geochat & to swap trackables in hopefully peaceful & beautiful surroundings. I have provided a parking waypoint at the free village car park as street parking is very limited. The road where the stocks are is very narrow, so please don't drive to the site. There are lots of my caches in this area, if you haven't done them previously. There may even be a new cache published for the occasion...