h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tibbets Corner History-Wimbledon - A9688198
Author: AeronLaffere - U3307955

This is just some historical information about Tibbets corner in Wimbledon

Hi!

I've had a look in the Edited Guide and although we have Edited Entries on Wimbledon Common and the Tennis stuff, we don't yet have one about Wimbledon itself.

So if you were interested in building this up a little into an Entry about the whole place you could put it through Peer Review and hopefully get it into the EG!

At the moment it's a bit short for an EG Entry (and this is the EG Writing Workshop you've put it into). If you wanted to just focus on Tibbets Corner it would still need expanding before being suitable for the EG.

So - a few choices for you there . Whatever you decide there will be people around who will assist you if you need any advice

Jules

Hello, Aaron,

I read your entry a while back and bookmarked it until I had time ot find out a bit more on this. I don't live a millions miles away meself and have really struggled to find Tibbetts Corner named in the history of Putney and/or Wimbledon. I think it seems to be called Putney Bottom and there is some evidence that the A3 is built on a criminals cemetery

I do think the information is a bit scant so I would suggest you either skew this into a mini history on Avershaw or on the area (Wimbledon or Putney Heath, eg) or somehing else you may think of.

Anyway, here's what I have found:

The infamy of Avershaw's life, and the atrocity of his deeds, rendered him a fit object for the posthumous punishment of hanging in chains on the arena of his crimes, and (painful as is the record, the truth must be told,) while the disgusting carcass of this malefactor, devoured by the birds and withered by the elements, gradually disappeared, the spot on which he had been gibbeted was converted into a temple of infamy, to which the thieves and vagabonds of London resorted in a sort of pilgrimage; and while the leading ruffians of the flash school, of which Avershaw was the child and champion, procured from his decaying and piece-meal carcass the bones of his fingers and toes to convert into stoppers for their tobacco-pipes, the tyro villains contented themselves with tearing the buttons from his clothes, as mementos of the estimation in which they held their arch prototype.
http://www.stand-and-deliver.org.uk/highwaymen/newgate_abershaw.htm


<smiley
W

I read this because 'Tibbet's Corner' was so familiar.

'...the bones of his fingers and toes to convert into stoppers for their tobacco-pipes...' . Old clay pipes, I suppose.
I used to pick up bits of old clay pipe at Cannizaro Park on the edge of the Common.

There's a basis here for a very neat entry along the lines Wilma suggested. Like the other posters I do think there needs to be a bit more content to make it into the Edited Guide.

Anyway, if for nothing better than general interest, there's another mention here http://www.wpcc.org.uk/HISTORICALINFORMATIONhistory.htm under 'Other Information' of both Tibbet's Corner and Abershawe. The Abershaw story sounds fascinating.

Thanks Aeron and Wilma, I would not have found out about the fingers and toes but for you two .

Waz

Wow, Waz, so according to your link, he *wasn't* hung up at Tibbetts Corner? The plot thickens... I do hope those bits of clay pipes you picked up weren't ...



Wilma

I hope the same...

Abershaw wasn't hanged there, no. He might have been hung there afterwards though (nice back in those days weren't they ).

It perhaps depends on where Tibbet's Corner is in relation to Coombes Wood and the "Bald-faced Stag", since those seem to have been his usual haunts and that's where it says they hung the previously hanged body. Aeron's in an ideal postion to find out - real on-the-ground research! And if there was actually a gibbet there as the entry indicates, it's that bit more likely.

I found an account of Abershaw (lost the link but could find it again) that said he went to the gallows in bare feet to prove his mother, who'd said he'd die with his boots on (ie be hanged), wrong. Bit of a card, hey?
Waz

Are you still working on this, Aeron?
W

Author has elvised - not much information here, so back to Entry with this one?

Ok, the Entry has now left the EGWW.

*unsubscribes*