County Chronicle 6th December 1825 The King v. Wm. Pratt
This was an indictment against the defendant for assaulting Sarah Turner, at Pirton, on the 17th October, with intent to kill and murder her. After the examination of witnesses for the prosecution, the Jury, under the Learned Judge’s directions, Acquitted the prisoner of the intention to kill and murder, but found him Guilty, of the common assault. The prisoner was again indicted for an assault upon his father, the effect of which was to confine the poor man under a surgeon’s hands for five days. The Jury again Acquitted the prisoner of the intention to kill his father, but Convicted him of the common assault. Mr. Baron Hullock animadverted in strong terms upon the barbarous and brutal conduct proved against the prisoner, which, if death had ensued, would have amounted to wilful murder, and the extremity of the law must have been infallibly put into execution. Under the circumstances of the case, he thought it his duty to sentence him to 12 months for the assault upon his father, and to nine months imprisonment and hard labour for the assault upon Mrs. Turner, telling him that had the Jury convicted him of the intention of murder, he should have visited him with a much severer punishment.
The Herts Mercury 6th December 1827 Poaching
William Lake and James Pitts were indicted for being out armed, for the purpose of killing game, in the night of the 20th of October last, at Pirton. Mr. Ryland conducted the prosecution. It appeared that two of Mr. Radcliffe’s gamekeepers being on the watch early in the morning in question, in their master’s grounds, saw the two prisoners, one armed with a gun, and accompanied by two dogs, beating for game and laying down wires for hares. They took them into custody without resistance. One of them had a powder horn in his pocket. Close by the spot where they were taken, fifteen wires were found laid for hares. They were found Guilty, and sentenced each to 12 months’ imprisonment and hard labour.
County Chronicle 20th January 1829
James Cooper, 26, labourer, was indicted for feloniously stealing four sacks, the property of John Kingsley, at the parish of Pirton, on the 25th of December last. James King, constable of Pirton, stated, that on the 26th of December he searched the prisoner’s premises, and found four sacks belonging to Mr. Kingsley; two were in the barn, one under the bed, and the other behind the copper. Cross-examined by Mr. Ryland: Had a search warrant; prisoner was not at home; the sacks were marked “J. Kingsley, Pirton.” John Kingsley sworn: the sacks produced are his property; lost a great many sacks. Cross- examined by Mr. Ryland: Don’t know when he lost them; is frequently losing them; cannot say how long before Christmas day that he missed any. An examination of the prisoner when before the Magistrate was read, wherein he stated that he came into possession of one of the sacks by one of Mr. Kingsley’s horses trampling over a sack of the prisoner’s, which had some barley meal in it, and spoiled it, and he took one of Mr. Kingsley’s sacks in exchange for the one that was damaged; the other three he knew nothing of. Verdict – Not Guilty
Cooper was again indicted with James Pitts and George Hill, for feloniously stealing, on the 25th December, at the parish of Pirton, one sack and three bushels of peas, value 10s., the property of Charles Kingsley. On the night of Christmas day, Mr. Kingsley’s barn was broken open, and the property laid in the indictment stolen therefrom. A search warrant was obtained, and on searching Cooper’s premises, the sack and peas were found in his barn. George Young, an accomplice, stated that between nine and ten on Christmas night he met Pitts and Hill, who asked him to go along with them to Mr. Kingsley’s barn, to get some peas; he consented, and went with them. Hill and witness pulled a board aside, and Pitts got in and opened the door. Young and Hill then went in at the door, and they found some peas in two sacks at the corner of the barn; they took some of them away in the two sacks, and left one sack with a few peas left behind. Hill had brought one or two sacks with him. Pitts and witness carried each a sack to Cooper’s, by Hill’s direction; they shot the peas into one sack, and left the full sack by the hedge in Cooper’s yard; did not see Cooper. Cross examined by Mr. Ryland: Worked for his bread; they were all very much in liquor; did not tell this story till he got into trouble himself. Cooper, Not Guilty: Pitts and Hill, Guilty. Pitts to be imprisoned in the House of Correction to hard labour, three months, and twice whipped; Hill to be imprisoned in the House of Correction to hard labour three months, and once whipped.
County Press 12th April 1834
Frederick Pointon was charged with stealing a great coat, the property of John Walker, a Pirton carrier.The prosecutor, on the 29th of March, stopped at the White Hart, Bell Bar, with his waggon and horses, to sup. After supper he missed his great coat from the wagon, and some time after found it inside of some palings near the stable door. He then set a man named Collins to watch it, and after starting his waggon went to the yard himself to see who came to fetch the coat away. He then saw the prisoner come out of the house, take the coat, and put it into his cart. On being cross-examined by Mr. Grove Price, the prosecutor said there were a great many waggons at the door of the inn. The prisoner was sitting inside of the house when he missed the coat. Henry Pointon, the prisoner’s brother, said that he rode in the prisoner’s cart to the White Hart; that the prisoner went into the house before the horse was taken out of the cart and fell asleep, and did not wake up until the servant girl called him to supper; he then went to sleep again, and did not leave the house until after the report of the coat being lost.
William Langden stopped at the White Hart on the night in question; heard the prosecutor ask the prisoner if he had prosecutor’s coat; prisoner said “if I have you are welcome to it.” He then got into the cart, pulled out a coat, and asked prosecutor if it was his? Prosecutor said “Yes,” and then the prisoner replied, “You are welcome to it.”
Verdict, Guilty. The court sentenced the prisoner to three weeks’ solitary confinement, and to be once whipped.
Reformer 20th February 1841
William Pitts pleaded Not Guilty to a charge of having entered the dwelling house of the Rev. John Kenning Fowler, of Pirton, and stolen a violin and bow therefrom. In this case the evidence was so clear as to leave no doubt of the prisoner’s guilt. The house of the prosecutor had been entered during the hours of divine service. This prisoner had offered the violin for sale at a public-house for 7s. 6d., but afterwards accepted 2s. stating that he had had nothing to eat for the last two days, or he would not be selling so cheap. He was found Guilty and sentenced to 10 years transportation.
County Chronicle 29th June 1819
HORSE STOLEN – FIFTEEN POUNDS REWARD – on Tuesday night last, there was stolen out of the stable of Mr. John Throssell, of Pirton, near Hitchin, a BLACK CART HORSE, aged, about 15 hands high, with a scar on the forehead, a small callous place on the nose, and a little white on the off leg behind; he has also two or three teeth out of the upper jaw, occasioned by a kick from another horse. Whoever will give such information to Mr Throssell as will lead to the recovery of the horse, shall receive from him a Reward of Five Pounds; and on conviction of the offender or offenders, they will be entitled to a further Reward of Ten Pounds from the Treasurer of the Hitchin Association; such reward to be divided among the informers. Hitchin, June17, 1819.
County Press 14th February 1835
On the afternoon of Saturday, the 31st January, a labourer of the name of Worsley (one of a body of parish paupers employed by Mr. Charles Kingsley, in spade husbandry, on a piece of land containing twenty-three acres, near Pirton Hill, in the county of Hertford, the property of Sir Edmund Filmer, Bart.), on turning up a portion of the ground, discovered a fragment of a small jar. Curiosity being excited, he was induced to try his spade deeper in the soil, which is of a white clayey nature, when at about twelve inches from the surface, a skeleton, in a very perfect condition, was exposed to view. Further search having been made during the ensuing week, twenty-seven more were found, with many Roman jars of moderate size, of a dull black, brittle clay; but which, on examination, were found only to contain burnt bones and ashes. The bodies appear to have been hastily placed in the ground there being no order observed; several measured upwards of six feet – thigh-bones eighteen inches. Pirton is on the extreme edge of the county of Herts, on the Bedfordshire land which adjoins, being the estate of Mr. Musgrave; and in the immediate neighbourhood, particularly at Higham Gobion, several specimens of Roman pottery in a perfect state, and numerous silver and copper coins have been dug up. Ravensborough Castle, in the parish of Hexton, which is about half a mile from Pirton, was a Roman station; and it may fairly be conjectured that the spot where those skeletons have been found, was appropriated as a place of interment for the slaughtered Romans. The land appears, for a space of thirty feet wide, by seventy or eighty feet long, to be crowded with bodies. No coins have as yet been brought to light, but a curiously ornamented brass armlet, and some buckles and twisted pins were found near one of the skeletons. The labourers have reaped rather a rich harvest, from the numerous donations contributed by the virtuosi and antiquaries, who have flocked from all parts to visit this Hertfordshire Golgotha. Up to Wednesday last, twenty-seven bodies had been dug out. Camden mentions, that in a field called Dale’s Furlong, which is a short distance from Ravensborough Castle, a desperate engagement took place between the Danes and Saxons – singular to observe, the name of the field in Pirton where the discovery has been made, is called Dane’s Shot. It may, previously to the inclosures, have been a continuation of the line of country, it being not more than half a mile; and a large field of land in the valley, which is in the line of country in Bedfordshire, the property of Mr. Musgrave, and which is near Ravensborough, is called The War Field. However, there is not the slighted doubt of the skeletons in Pirton being, in this instance, Roman – the urns decide
