Bimble : Tom Dick Harry Tree

For awhile my brother and myself had wanted to go find a local tree with which has some history behind it, so we took the kids out for a walk.

It was a nice eerie day as we walked to the tree we were looking for.

an this was the tree we were looking for.

 

The History
The Dunsdon brothers, Tom, Dick and Harry were from Fulbrook which is just outside Burford and part of the Burford Parish, they were also known as "The Burford Highwaymen". The brothers began their life of crime by robbing farmers of stock and money as they travelled to market, they would hide the stolen livestock in the local Wychwood Forest. 

They were rumoured to be responsible for robbing the Gloucester to Oxford coach. The oldest brother Dick disappeared after a failed robbery at Tangley Hall, 2 miles outside Burford. The brothers attempted to rob the place but the owners had been tipped off and as Dick put his arm through an opening in the door to remove the bolt the people waiting inside grabbed his arm and tied it to the bolt so that Dick could not pull it back out. Dick shouted to his brothers "cut! cut!" and one of his brothers drew his sword and severed off his arm at the elbow. 

As they fled they are rumoured to have gone to the Merrymouth Inn where their requests for help were refused and they then shot the innkeeper and left him for dead. The brothers fled and Dick was never seen or heard of again and is believed to have died of his injuries. Tom and Harry were captured after attending the Burford Whitsuntide Festival in Capps Lodge, after an altercation with a man called William Harding who was shot by Harry in the chest,  The landlord and several others apprehended the fugitives and delivered them to the Gloucestershire gaol (jail). 

Some weeks later Harding died and the brothers were tried for his murder and convicted. The sentence on these "desperate fellows who had long been a terror to the country where they lived" as the judge summed it up was death by hanging and their bodies to be hung in chains thereafter. Their bodies were hanged from a gibbet tree on the edge of the forest which was once their refuge. This tree is still there today. 

Text  from http://www.tomdickandharry.co.uk/othertomdickandharrys.html

H, T carved into the tree. (possibly a D below but could not say for sure)

The Gibbet Tree - Gibbet Tree, Capp's Lodge, Fulbrook

The Gibbet Tree a couple of miles beyond Burford, near Capp's Lodge, still stands today, gnarled and crooked branches reach out of the old oak like a witch's fingers pointing to the sky.

Text from - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1447209

Kids loved the walk as we found some Geocashe treasure on the way to the Tree.