Highgate charity shop showcases latest acquisition - a pillory used by Daniel Defoe
Noel Lynch and his Pillory at The Green Room charity shop Archway Road. - Credit: Archant
It would usually have been found outside a courthouse hundreds of years ago with a criminal locked inside.
But the Green Room charity shop in Archway Road - known for stocking wacky items such as Britt Ekland’s chamber pot and a dinosaur egg - now has a pillory for sale.
The device is similar to stocks, where a criminal would have their head and hands locked into a device and be on public display for passers-by to hurl rotten fruit and excrement at.
But instead of sitting or kneeling, the person locked inside remains standing up.
The pillory was found in Wales by a friend of shop owner, Noel Lynch, where it once stood outside a courthouse in Anglesey.
Mr Lynch said: “I wanted something which would stop people when they were walking past so they’d come into the shop. Quite a few people have stopped and had a go.
“It’s not really for sale, but if we were made a decent offer we’d consider it.”
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The pillory was once thought to have been used on novelist Daniel Defoe before he went to prison for his political pamphleteering during the 18th century.
