Winter's Gibbet.

Monument to murder on a lonely moorland road in Northumberland.

Image: Winter's Gibbet on the Elsdon to Cambo road in Northumberland.

Image: On Northumberland's country roads.Winter's Gibbet. picture.

On a lonely moorland road between Elsdon and Cambo, Northumberland, a strange and forboding sight awaits the traveller, a head swaying in the breeze high on an old weathered gibbet is enough to stop anyone in their tracks. In 1791 William Winter and Jane & Eleanor Clark were executed at the Westgate, Newcastle for the murder of Margaret Crozier. An old lady living alone in this remote area was an easy target for the traveller Winter and the Clark girls, a pair of tinkers, who accompanied him to rob and murder the old lady. They were soon caught and paid the price for their crime.

Following the execution the bodies were disposed of in different ways: the females dispatched to the surgeon's hall for dissection whilst the body of William Winter was hung in chains on the gibbet a few miles south of Elsdon within sight of the scene of his crime.

The body was left to rot on the gibbet. A wooden effigy eventually took the place of Winter until only the head remained.

Image: moorland around winters gibbet.

View of the lonely Northumberland moors from the gibbet.

Image: moorland around winters gibbet.

Image: Winters gibbet on a lonely moorland road.

The stone at it's foot is the base of a saxon cross which marked the highest point of this ancient drove road down which cattle were driven from Scotland to the English markets.

Image: Winter's Gibbet on the Elsdon to Cambo road in Northumberland.