protested they were scapegoats. Mary Squires counter-claimed that she was with the smugglers, in Abbotsbury and Chedington, at the time when the prosecution accused her of cavorting with highwaymen. The magistrate was Henry Fielding (1707–54), who had used similar character material in his earlier novel Tom Jones. He allowed dubious evidence from Elizabeth Canning (1734–73) and an even less credible account from a young lady named Virtue Hall. Squires and Wells were tried and convicted. The newly elected Lord Mayor of London, a notable humanitarian and freeman of the Brewers’ Company named Sir Crisp Gascoyne (1700–61), reviewed fresh evidence and eventually, Mary Squires secured a pardon, but Susannah Wells, was less fortunate as she had already been hanged. Years later the story would be re-told in Thomas Hardy's 1906 narrative poem 'A Trampwoman's Tragedy'. The Inn marks the western end of the Dorset Downs. The wooded viewpoint ridge looks north across most of Somerset from a strategic chalky pass into the Dorset downs. Along here, through Winyard’s Gap, King Charles led his troops after successful West Country campaigns in 1644 in England during the Civil War. After the First World War, the National Trust, which owns Winyard’s Gap, donated 16 acres of land here for a memorial to the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division of the Dorsetshire Regiment and a replica of the monument found on Hill 112 at Caen in Normandy was erected. River Parrett Trail Chedington is the starting point of the long River Parrett Trail, a long-distance footpath along the route of the River Parrett, which rises in the village. It passes many landmarks and places of interest including; Burrow Hill Cider Farm, Muchelney Abbey, West Sedgemoor, the Blake Museum, Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum, the site of the Battle of Sedgemoor (July 1685) and finally discharging into Bridgwater Bay. References Sources Chedington, in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 1, West (London, 1952), p. 89. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol1/p89 Cols and Passes of the British Isles, Graham Robb, Penguin, 2016 (reference to Winyard's Gap) The Lounger's Common-place Book: Vol 2., London 1796, page 194 (reference Ale house at Winyard's gap) Moving Subjects: Gender, Mobility, and Intimacy in an Age of Global Empire, Ed., Tony Ballantyne, Antoinette M. Burton, 2009 USA, (the trials of Mary Squires and Susannah Wells) Elizabeth Is Missing: One of the Eighteenth Century's Greatest Mysteries, Lillian de la Torre, 1945, Alfred A.