A History Of The Stocks

These stocks had formerly been situated near the Kings Arms, and then moved nearer the Baptist Chapel. Later they were used for gate stoops at Bow Hill.

A request to remove them from Bow hill and put them in the park was made in 1921.

Stocks were used to publicly humiliate one who had committed a misdemeanour in Elizabethan times.

Common crimes in the Elizabethan Age included:

• Wandering around the streets in a drunken state. The offender would be publicly humiliated via stocks.

• Cheating a customer would most certainly land a shop owner in the pillory or stocks.