30 



Facts relating to Marlborovgh. 



These, however, are a little different in form from that at Newcastle- 

 upon-Tyne. 



There is a brank in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford ; and 

 another in the Police Office at Shrewsbury. The branks at Oxford 

 and Shrewsbury are both similar to that figured by Dr. Plot ; 

 except that each of them had only one staple, and not different 

 staples to suit persons of different sizes. 



A brank, from Lichfield, was formerlj' shown at a meeting of the 

 Archaeological Institute, and I am told that another exists at the 

 Church of Walton-on-Thames ;* and Mr. Noake, in his " Worcester 

 in the Olden Time," gives an entry in the Corporation books of 

 that city, relating to the repair of this species of instrument, under 

 the date of 1658. 



The brank in my possession is of the reign of William III., if 

 a stamp of the letter W, crowned, may be considered as denoting 



'^§> ^^ ^. that date. Of this brank I can 



"V^V^ ^^^ "'^^ ^i^^ ^^ account. The person 



from whom I had it knew nothing 

 of its history, not even for what 

 purpose it was intended. 



I was told by the Venerable 

 Archdeacon Hale, that, in addi- 

 tion to cucking-stools and branks, 

 the scolds of former days had the 

 terrors of the ecclesiastical courts 

 before their eyes, and that the 

 ecclesiastical records of the diocese 

 of Loudon contained many entries 

 Brank in %p;os«e^on of Mr. F. A. respecting scolds ; and it is Stated 



1 1 am informed by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., that there are excellent 

 examples of branks at Stockport, at Altrincham, at Congleton, one formerly at 

 Carrington (now at Warrington) and also four specimens at Chester, all of which 

 have been figured by Mr. Brushfield, and that a curious allusion is made to the 

 mode of using branks (with a quaint woodcut) in the " Memoirs of the first 

 forty five years of the life of .Jumes Lackington " 1795. 



