Page 70 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

HeRItAge
Dolben Square, Coronation Day, 1911. The stone is being used as a seat
Bailey also mentions that the ‘roughly hewn stone, was once regularly used as a seat by old men and as a platform by local orators.’
this was certainly the case, as reported in the Northampton Mercury of 4 August 1860.
Wellingborough Petty sessions. Finedon. Ephraim Lewis, parish constable, of Finedon charged J. Miller, of the same place, with being drunk and disorderly in the street, on the 25 of July. It appeared that on the evening in question Mr Briggs of Wellingborough, was preaching in the open air, and Miller went to hear him, and, considering his preaching not the genuine article, he stood on a stone and shouted at the top of his voice, “No quackery, let’s have the Gospel” whereupon a friend of Miller’s nudged him as he stood “kicking” on the top of the stone and shook him off. He got up and pushed the constable’s son, thinking it was he who had toppled him from his commanding eminence. Thereupon Lewis, the elder, sped home, and soon returned, with his staff, and ‘whizzled’ it round defendant’s head, and insisted on his going home, which he did. Witnesses were called on both sides. Some said defendant was drunk and some said he was only excited by what was said. The case was not sufficiently clear, and was therefore dismissed, each party paying their own costs.
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