Myths and Legends

One of the legends of East Hertfordshire is that you can sometimes see a ghost which writhes around on the ground at a spot on the Datchworth to Branfield Road just outside Hertford!

And like all good tales, whether you believe in the supernatural or not, there is a factual beginning to this story!

In the late 18th century, Hertford was a very important market town where there was many a bargain to be had.

But it seemed that those traders who were doing the best were being attacked for their takings on the way home, and in many cases not living to tell the tale!

So begins the story of the Murderous Pie Man of Hertford!

Hertford Museum

Valuable

Ruth Stratton from the Hertford Museum told us the whole story which begins in the local inns of Hertford:

“Often after the market, the traders would go into the local pub, the Maiden Head which is now Woolworths in the town” she said.

“They’d all have a drink and chat about how well they’d done.

“There was one gentleman who had a very valuable watch which he stuck in his boot. On the way home he was attacked and robbed and the robber seemed to know that the watch was in his boot. A lot of the market people wondered how that could be. How could the robber have possibly known that kind of information?

“There was also the case of Robert Whittenbury who was boasting about making £200 at market one day and on the way home HE got robbed” she continued.

“It went on for quite a few months, nobody actually knew who this gang of robbers were and they had blackened faces as well so it was very hard to identify them.”

Mole

There was obviously a mole somewhere but it wasn’t until the attack on Robert Whittenbury that the gang and its ringleader were finally unmasked! Ruth continued the story.

“The time that Robert Whittenbury was robbed for his £200, his younger brother had gone on ahead in the cart and was attacked first. But because he was carrying nothing they thrashed the horse and sent him off.

Woolworths used to be the Maiden Head

“The younger brother knew the others were coming along behind him with their takings so he decided he would go to his uncle’s house at Queen Hoo Hall, and get some help and go back.

“He got his uncle and some cousins and his uncle’s servant, called George North, who took his half bore gun with him” Ruth continued.

“They rode back to the spot where the younger brother had been way laid and they found Robert being viciously attacked by this gang of robbers. He was alive but with a broken skull.

“There was a bit of a brawl, then, when the uncle was being attacked by the elder of the robbers and had a knife to his throat, he called out to George North and said to him “Shoot or I’m a dead man.

“So George North shot the robber and killed him.”

Identify

It was only after the robber had fallen dead that they cleaned his face and managed to identify him as the pie man who’d been going round the taverns in Hertford on market days. His name was Walter Clibborn, and as Ruth explained further, he had more tricks up his sleeve than just posing as selling lunchtime snacks!

“I think he was also posing as being deaf so that people would talk openly in front of him and wouldn’t think he was listening to them. This is how he was gathering his information” she revealed.

“He was actually quite friendly with the farmers and had a good rapport with them. He just meandered amongst them and nobody took any notice of a deaf pie man. But he was targeting who he was going to rob later that day.

“His gang were his family basically” she added, “he had 11 children which he groomed to be robbers and sometimes his wife joined in as well! But between them they robbed people for several months.”

Commemorate

This story has been passed down through the generations for some 200 years now, fuelled by the existence of the actual gun that shot Clibborn and a marker, put up at the spot to commemorate the story as Ruth explained.

Hertford Market Place

“There’s a post which is on the Datchworth to Branfield road which has stood there ever since 1782 when the murder happened” she said, “although when one rots away they replace it with another post.

“The actual remains of Clibborn are said to have been put in the ground where he was shot and a post stuck in there commemorating this as kind of like a warning to others.

“And the gun that shot Clibborn is at the museum. It’s on display at the moment in an exhibition called Dark Herts which is about crime and punishment in the county. It’s a grim souvenir of this story.”

So, if you’re ever on the Datchworth to Branfield Road, look out for the ghost of Clibborn returning return to the scene of his demise, or if you’re not into that sort of thing, visit the Hertford Museum to see the gun that killed him and the remains of the original post – and help the story of the Murderous Pie Man of Hertford to live on!