Village Stocks

Detail from a watercolour by Louisa Ashwell (1880s).

The stocks lately seen near the Cross Tree, Finmere, were of the kind in use in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. It was not any bodily pain inflicted, but the public disgrace to which the misdoer was exposed, which constituted the punishment. Many persons now living in the village can well remember seeing the stocks used. (Blomfield's History of Finmere, written in 1886 )