Clibborn's Post

NOT A MURDER STONE - REVERSE CASE, DIFFERENT CATEGORY: this marks where a highwayman himself was killed while attacking someone, not where an innocent victim was murdered - genuinely the opposite of every other entry in this archive. On the night of 28 December 1782, a farmer travelling home from Hertford Market to Datchworth by cart, accompanied by a servant named Shock, was ambushed at this spot by a masked robber who seized the horse's reins and began drawing a knife on the farmer. The farmer shouted 'Shoot, Shock, or I am a dead man!' and the servant, who carried a blunderbuss, fired and killed the attacker instantly. The dead man turned out to be a local pieman named Clibborn, a seemingly respectable figure who sold pies at Hertford inns on market days - giving him the perfect opportunity to note which farmers were carrying large sums of cash home, before waylaying them on quiet lanes like this one. The original marker was reportedly a stake driven through the highwayman's body at the site (a traditional treatment for suicides and certain criminals, meant to prevent the spirit from rising); the post seen today is described as 'the modern successor' to that original stake, still maintained at the same spot as of the source's writing in the early 20th century - it's not clear from what's been checked here whether it still stands today.