putney and battersea 1

Putney heath

Abershaw the highwayman was tracked down 

 after several highway robberies to his favourite haunt, 

 The Green Man pub in Putney, and,

in a desperate attempt to escape, he shot at the two 

 officers, and one was killed.and the other seriously injured.

When he was caught he was tried for murder and on 

3rd August 1795, he was taken to Kennington to be executed.

But some say that he was gibbetted on Jerry's Hill

On Putney Heath, and that is where he is said to haunt. 

The story goes that his gang retrieved the body,

 as it mysteriously disappeared.

  He's said to trail people who wander the Heath at night.

Apparently his body is interred in a highway man's cemetery up there.

"And still of a winter’s night, they say,
when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon
tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight
over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding…
up to the old inn-door."
​Extract from The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

I do like tales about ghosts of highwaymen... maybe it's the involvement of gibbets.

I wanted to go on to talk about the Eland Rd haunting...

Next....