Description: The cross on the left hand verge marks the spot where Sam Daykin, gamekeeper, was shot dead 5th June 1893. In the Clifton Book, Ross Bruce describes a cross cut into the grass next to 'the road to Nottingham about 150 yards from the green'. The cross was a memorial to the Clifton's gamekeeper, Samuel Daykin who 'died in the execution of his duty'. It marked the spot where in the early hours of the 5th of June, 1893 Daykin challenged a group of poachers. They responded by shooting him dead. The group were subsequently captured and the trial attracted much publicity. The courts found them not guilty on the technicality that Daykin had been carrying a gun and the poachers had merely fired in self defence. Shockingly, the acquitted men were treated as heroes by the towns people. They celebrated the acquittal with a brass band accompanied parade through the streets of Nottingham with the poachers leading the way! Perhaps the Nottingham people felt the gamekeeper represented an unpopular authority figure. Maybe they believed that the gamekeeper had fired first or maybe it simply serves as an example of the morality of the day. The people of Clifton must have felt the shooting was unjust for the memorial turf cross was maintained for forty seven years after the incident, ending only with the social upheaval of the second world war. Soon after the shooting, Daykin's widow was provided with a cottage by the then Clifton manor holder, Sir Hervey Bruce.