Stallan’s Cottage, Great Shelford

History of Stallan's Cottage

Fanny Wale writes in her description of Shelford Parva in 1914:

From the Road and Rail towards Shelford parva, Station Road was then called Woollard’s Lane. Behind the house called the Woodlands (at present inhabited by Dr W C Magoris) there was once a cottage, inhabited in 1842. by a man called Stallion [sic] who was the night watchman; he was hanged upon the gallows becaue he set fire to, and destroyed, twelve homsteads [sic] in Shelford Magna, in order to get the reward of fifteen shillings which was given to the first person who gave the alarm of fire. After the death of Stallion [sic], this reward was discontinued. The barns being all built of tarred wood and thatched, a fire-engine would not arrive quickly enough to save them, though one was kept at the “George and Dragon” Public House in Shelford Magna.

For more information about the arsonist Stallan, see Shelfords data.