The Stocks, Eyam

“From the 14th century every town and village was ordered to maintain a set of stocks and an Act passed under Henry VII decreed that vagabonds and idle persons were to be secured in stocks ‘there to remayne by the space of thre days and thre nightes and there to have none other sustenance but bread and water’ before being driven out of town…”^[1]

But at least they weren't consigned to a pillory, where the possibility existed for persons to be nailed by the ears!^[2]

(Information provided by Rosemary Lockie)

Reference
[1] For further reading see Take a Look at: Stocks and Houses of Correction, by Julie Bunting.
[2] See various instances in The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London, (1550-1563).