The last known hanging in Wickham Market and last use of the village’s haunting gibbet at Potsford was in 1699. But what’s the story? Is there really a ghost in them there woods? And what happened in 2025 to ‘commemorate’ the anniversary of that final grisly goings on?

Taken from an article prepared for and published in the Wickham Market Parish News February 2025, courtesy of Phillip Tallent, Chairman of the Wickham Market Area Archive Centre. It includes quoted text which is an extract from the Woodbridge Reporter and Wickham Market Gazette of 22nd March 1894.

“On the hill from time to time various scenes have been enacted. Near two centuries ago an execution took place. From an old record we quote the following – A man named Jonas Snell was hanged in Wickham Market street for the murder of John Bullard, his master, and John Bullard, his master’s father, at Letheringham Mill [Note: father and son were both called John Bullard]. His body was afterwards hanged in chains upon Potsford’s Hill by the road leading from Wickham Market to Letheringham. Tradition says that his skeleton hung in the wood many years, and birds built their nests in his skull.

The gibbet posts remained until recent years [ ie. before 1894], and when the main road went by the spot, it was avoided at night by superstitious persons.

After Snell’s execution, a sermon was preached in Dallinghoo Church by Thomas Smyth, an affectionate lover of souls, on Good, charitable and well pleasing hopes of the Penitent Murder’s Pardon and Salvation A.D. 1699.”

Interested in reading the story of the miller murder, Jonas Snell? I Find out more

A grisly business & lasting legacy

After the hanging, Jonas Snell’s body was dragged behind a cart down the steep Draggards Hill, to the gibbet. Today, this name has been changed, and people sometimes refer to it as Drag Arse Hill!

Snell’s body hung on the gibbet in an iron cage for 40 years, as a deterrent, until his remains were buried at the base of the gibbet.

Even today, the gibbet post still remains, in the woods, but over time, the sign in front of it had fallen into disrepair. On 14th April 2025, 326 years after that last known hanging, the Wickham Market & Area Archive Centre obtained and fixed a new sign in place to “commemorate” the anniversary of this event. A new walk leaflet including a walk to Potsford Wood – the 5.5 mile circular Byng Brook & Potsford Walk -and the gibbet from Wickham Market was also launched at this time.

So what about the ghost? Well, why not go on the walk and find out for yourself?