At Lymm, Cheshire, there are some good stocks by the cross in that village, and many others may be discovered by the wandering antiquary, though their existence is little known and usually escapes the attention of the writers on local antiquities.  As relics of primitive modes of administering justice, it is advisable that they should be preserved.

Yet another implement of rude justice was the cucking or ducking stool, which exists in a few places.  It was used principally for the purpose of correcting scolding women.  Mr. Andrews, who knows all that can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between the cucking and ducking stool, and states that the former originally was a chair of infamy where immoral women and scolds were condemned to sit with bare feet and head to endure the derision of the populace, and had no relation to any ducking in water.  But it appears that later on the terms were synonymous, and several of these implements remain.  This machine for quieting intemperate scolds was quite simple.  A plank with a chair at one end was attached by an axle to a post which was fixed on the bank of a river or pond, or on wheels, so that it could be run thither; the culprit was tied to the chair, and the other end of the plank was alternately raised or lowered so as to cause the immersion of the scold in the chilly water.  A very effectual punishment!  The form of the chair varies.  The Leominster ducking-stool is still preserved, and this implement was the latest in use, having been employed in 1809 for the ducking of Jenny Pipes, alias Jane Corran, a common scold, by order of the magistrates, and also as late as 1817; but in this case the victim, one Sarah Leeke, was only wheeled round the town in the chair, and not ducked, as the water in the Kenwater stream was too shallow for the purpose.  The cost of making the stool appears in many corporation accounts.  That at Hungerford must have been in pretty frequent use, as there are several entries for repairs in the constable’s accounts.[55] Thus we find the item under the year 1669:—­

    “Pd for the Cucking stoole 01,10,00”

and in 1676:—­

    “Pd for nailes and workmanship about
    the stocks and cucking stoole 00,07,00”

  [55] The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head official
  being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor in
  less original boroughs.

At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure:—­

    “The making of the cucking-stool . 8s. 0d. 
    Iron work for the same . . . 3s. 0d. 
    Timber for the same . . . 7s. 6d. 
    Three brasses for the same and three wheels 4s. 10d.
          
                                      ------------
                                             L1 3s. 4d.”

We need not record similar items shown in the accounts of other boroughs.  You will still find examples of this fearsome implement at Leicester in the museum, Wootton Bassett, the wheels of one in the church of St. Mary, Warwick; two at Plymouth, one of which was used in 1808; King’s Lynn, Norfolk, in the museum; Ipswich, Scarborough, Sandwich, Fordwich, and possibly some other places of which we have no record.