The Robbers' Stone

NOT A MURDER STONE - DIFFERENT CATEGORY, matching exactly what the Facebook commenter described: a robbery, not a killing, with the wrongdoers punished rather than the victim killed. Matthew Dean, a farmer from the now-deserted village of Imber, was riding home from Devizes market on 21 October 1839 when four highwaymen dragged him off his horse at Gore Cross and robbed him of banknotes, gold, silver, and his hat. He gave chase on foot and was joined by several local farmers on horseback; during the three-hour pursuit across the downs, one robber, Benjamin Colclough, collapsed and died (seemingly from exhaustion rather than violence - no source found describes him being struck). The other three were caught, tried, and transported to Australia for fifteen years rather than hanged - the commenter's mention of 'the Devizes assizes' may actually be the quarter sessions rather than the assizes proper, per the stone's own wording, though the two courts are easy to conflate. There are genuinely two linked monuments: one at Gore Cross marking the robbery itself, one at Chitterne Down marking where Colclough died - exact wording differences between the two individual stones weren't confirmed from sources checked here.