A gallows, which is replaced whenever it rots and which looks like an unpainted and overly square football goal, is visible just north-west of Barnetby le Wold, behind a lay-by. There is no sign to explain what it is, nor what it is still doing there.

The site is the subject of two competing legends. According to one, some boys were playing here, pretending to hang themselves from a tree. The Devil, in the form of a three-legged hare, then hopped by, and all the boys ran after it – all but one, that is, who accidentally hanged himself and died while his friends were distracted. It is said that a gallows was subsequently erected in the same place as an act of commemoration. The Devil, and devilish beings such as witches, were often thought to take the form of a hare. The second legend concerns a deadly longstanding feud between the de Ros family, who owned the land here, and the nearby Tyrwhit family. According to this legend, James I erected the gallows as a warning, and ordered that any future killings resulting from the feud should be tried as murder.

Words by RORY WATERMAN