Gonerby Hill

Novelists of the 19th century ensured that Gonerby Hill became a firm part of Great North Road folklore.

In “Heart of Midlothian” Walter Scott included an exchange between a Newark inn keeper and Jeanie Deans who is walking to London. The landlord assures her that the way south is all plain road except for the “high mountains of Gunnerby Hill”. Scottish Jeannie is pleased, saying “baith my sight and my very feet are weary o’ level ground”. The response is that she can carry Gunnerby away with her “for it’s murder to post horses”.

William Harrison Ainsworth, a fellow writer and friend of Charles Dickens, consolidated the myths surrounding Gonerby Hill. “Rookwood”, his hugely successful first novel published in 1834, featured a far-fetched tale of deceit, romance and banditry.

As the eddying currents sweep over its plains in howling, bleak December, the horse and her rider passed over what remained of Lincolnshire. Grantham is gone, and they are now more slowly looking up the ascent of Gonerby Hill, a path well known to Turpin; where often, in bygone nights, many a purse had changed its owner. With that feeling of independence and exhilaration which every one feels, we believe, on having climbed the hill-side, Turpin turned to gaze around. There was triumph in his eye. But the triumph was checked as his glance fell upon a gibbet near him to the right, on the round point of hill which is a landmark to the wide vale of Belvoir. Pressed as he was for time, Dick immediately struck out of the road, and approached the spot where it stood. Two scarecrow objects, covered with rags and rusty links of chains, depended from the tree. A night crow screaming around the carcases added to the hideous effect of the scene. Nothing but the living highwayman and his skeleton brethren was visible upon the solitary spot. Around him was the lonesome waste of hill, o’erlooking the moonlit valley: beneath his feet, a patch of bare and lightning-blasted sod: above, the wan, declining moon and skies, flaked with ghostly clouds; before him, the bleached bodies of the murderers, for such they were.

“Will this be my lot, I marvel?” said Dick, looking upwards, with an involuntary shudder.

“Ay, marry will it,” rejoined a crouching figure, suddenly springing from beside a tuft of briars that skirted the blasted ground.

Dick started in his saddle, while Bess reared and plunged at the sight of this unexpected apparition.

The gibbet and its dangling caged or chained bodies were real enough – a reminder to locals and those travelling the Great North Road not to stray from the straight and narrow. And the children of Great Gonerby continue to be educated in this way, though the bodies have been removed.

This gibbet stands in the playing fields and is visible from the main road. Image Credit – Rex Gibson

The children receive a somewhat contradictory message from a mural on the adjacent Memorial Hall depicting the glamours of life as a Highwayman.

Mural on Great Gonerby Memorial Hall, 2025

Gonerby is no mountain pass but it would have provided a challenge to horses drawing heavy coaches – whether approaching from north or south. Road improvements of the 1820s and 1830s saw the inclines re-profiled to make them a little less steep.

Great Gonerby is a pleasant little village at the top of a ridge of higher ground to the northwest of Grantham. In the 3km from Grantham the road rises from 53m to 105m above sea level; it then descends 1.5km to Gonerby Moor which is at 43m (near the Downtown Store next to the current A1).

This mid-20th century Ordnance Survey map gives some indication of the topography

Until the Georgian era, the village was known as Gunwarby and the local pronunciation remains “gun” rather than “gone”. There were three inns, most notably The Recruiting Sergeant and the Rutland Arms (which was once an intermediate posting house).

It is claimed that Gonerby was the scene of an early skirmish by Oliver Cromwell before his rise to prominence. He is said to have lodged in a house in Pond Street locally known as Cromwell’s Cottage. In May 1643, with just 12 fighters, he defeated a group of royalists. Grantham was taken by the Parliamentarians and the focus returned to Newark.

It was late in the evening when we drew out; they came and faced us within two miles of the town. So soon as we had the alarm, we drew out our forces, consisting of about twelve troops,-whereof some of them so poor and broken, that you shall seldom see worse; with this handful it pleased God to cast the scale. For after we had stood a little, above musket-shot the one body from the other; and the dragooners had fired on both sides, for the space of half an hour or more; they not advancing towards us, we agreed to charge them. And, advancing the body after many shots on both sides, we came on with our troops a pretty round trot; they standing firm to receive us; and our men charging fiercely upon them, by God’s providence they were immediately routed, and ran all away, and we had the execution of them two or three miles.
Letter written by Oliver Cromwell, 13 May 1643

Midway between Grantham and Great Gonerby is Gonerby Hill Foot. This happens to be the location of the most northerly of the Edmund Boulter mounting blocks. Though much worn it displays the date 1703. Some suggest the bowl on the top step was to provide water for thirsty horses!

The heavily eroded mounting block at Gonerby Hill Foot

Rookwood, William Harrison Ainsworth

Top of page image: 1830s watercolour depicting the scene from Rookwood