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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. 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"
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.
Professor Hales, who thinks, whether genuine or not, this charter is certainly of value, interprets Sandgate as North End, Foxhanger as Haverstock Hill, Watling Street as Edgeware Road, and the Cucking Pool he concludes was in the marshy ground at the north-west corner of the parish.
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.
It granted the land at Hamstede to one Mangoda, and the limits of the grant are thus stated: "From Sandgate along the road to Foxhanger; from the Hanger west to Watling Street north along the street to the Cucking Pool; from the Cucking Pool east to Sandgate."
A road, starting opposite the Holy Lamb, in Church-street, and ending near the top of High- street, formerly passed through "The Park." Years ago a ducking or cucking stool was placed at the northern side of it, adjoining a pit, and at the edge of the thoroughfare known as Meadow street. This ducking stool was intended for the special benefit of vixens and scolding wives.
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