The Gibbet

Discover The Gibbet

Discover the Gibbet on Hindhead Commons where in 1786 a sailor was brutally murdered by three men which he had befriended (in a local pub in Thursley) whilst walking from London to the docks in Portsmouth. The three villains were tried and then hanged on Gibbet Hill, near the site of the murder, as a warning to other criminals. Soon after the murder a stone was erected to mark the spot where the poor sailor met his death. Walk along the Old Portsmouth Road and find the Sailor’s Stone. After the hanging many fears and superstitions arose around Gibbet Hill and in 1851 Sir William Erle, an English lawyer, judge and Whig politician, paid for a Celtic cross to be erected to banish these fears and raise the local spirits.

Access Gibbet Hill by visiting the Devil’s Punchbowl.