Custom
The Lingfield Cage
One night inside, and the magistrate in the morning.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Small stone lock-up attached to a medieval cross base
- Legend from
- Recorded history
- Tone
- Curious
Lingfield's lock-up leans on a medieval cross. One night in here sobered up many a poacher.
By the pond in Lingfield stands a fifteenth-century stone pedestal called St Peter's Cross, and built against it is a small stone lock-up with a little tower: the village cage. It was added in 1773 to hold drunks, poachers and anyone awaiting the magistrate overnight, and it was last used in 1882. The cross, which Sir Reginald Cobham is said to have put up to mark a manor boundary, has lost its head and its niches are empty. Cross and cage together make one of the oddest corners of any Surrey village.