The Stocks and Pillory. The stocks and pillory are an early form of punishment in which offenders were held by the legs or wrist for public ridicule. Offenders were sometimes pelted with fruit or rubbish by the crowds who gathered to see them. The last time the stocks and pillory were used in Midhurst was in 1859 when Henry Eldridge was sentenced to a period of six hours for non-payment of a fine.