Finney's Post is part of an ornate mediaeval oak post, which came from a building at the corner of the Market Place and High Street,

Burton upon Trent Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a market town in the borough of East Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire, England, close to the border with Derbyshire. In United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011, it had a ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. For a picture of it, see Legend has it that this post caused an apparently-dead woman (Mrs Albert Finney) to be brought back to life when her coffin crashed into the post. Mrs Finney lived in Clay's Lane,

Stapenhill Stapenhill is a suburban village and civil parish in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire in the United Kingdom, UK. It was a small village owned by Nigel of Stafford as far back as 1086, however, this ancient parish area has long since been surroun ...

and was a baker's assistant. After the incident described in that reference, she became ill with consumption/TB and died at the age of 36 years. She was buried at

Bretby Bretby is a village and civil parish in the south of Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent, on the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 893. T ...

churchyard. The post was formerly housed in the Burton Town Museum which closed around 1980. From then until 2007 it was on display at the Meadowside Leisure Centre in the town in a glass case. In July 2007 the post was supposedly "given away" to the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

by the

East Staffordshire Borough Council East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

causing a furore in the town. Further investigation shows that the post had been purchased by the V and A in 1922 and then loaned back to Burton Town Museum. This was planned to have only been for a matter of months but for some reason the post remained in Burton until 2007. The "controversy" as reported in the local press was therefore not warranted. The post is now displayed in the Architecture Section of the V and A.

Inscription On the Post

'This Post, as Finney's Legend saith, Awoke a Scolding Wife from Death; But when at length she ceas'd to breathe, And honest Finney ceased to grieve, 'oh shun' he said, as borne along, With solemn dirge and funeral song. 'Oh shun, my friends, that cruel Stump That gave my dear so hard a Bump.' J.S.

References

{{coord, 52.80162, -1.63076, region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in Burton upon Trent