Murder on the highway at Hindhead Commons

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. 

 

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, can you read the inscription?

 

The three villains were tried and then hung on Gibbet Hill, near the site of the murder, as a warning to other criminals.

 

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.

 

The Celtic cross is listed as Grade II listed monument by English Heritage.