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White Hart 1867: No rush as ham thieves have midnight feast

Updated: Dec 14, 2020


The White Hart Inn c1900

Cuckfield: Housebreaking

On Tuesday night some thieves broke into the White Hart Inn (Mrs Stubberfield's) by forcing open the shutter, a hinged one, of the bar window, into which room they got and seem to have forced open the money till with a pair of sugar nippers lying on the counter. They took about £2 in coin, nearly all pence. They also opened and disturbed the contents of another drawer and a workbox, took down a bottle of bitters and helped themselves, leaving a bottle and cork on the table.


Sugar nippers, to cut sugar off a 'loaf' (cone)

They also displaced the cigar boxes, emptying one nearly half full of its contents and carrying away a bottle of peppermint. By aid of a key, they got into the cellar, from whence they took about four or five lbs of cooked bacon; they seem to have eaten a small quantity of it, from the appearance of a small bone, freshly gnawed; they left behind part of a loaf of bread and a bottle of cordial. Letting themselves out by the back door they threw away part of a rush candle in the yard and decamped. The thieves are still at large.

Surrey Gazette - Tuesday 12 March 1867


Contributed by Malcolm Davison.

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