What Were “Ducking Stools”?
A ducking stool was a sort of a chair in which “common scolds” were formerly tied and plunged into water. They were of different forms, but that most commonly in use consisted of an upright post and a transverse movable beam on which the seat was fitted or from which it was suspended by a chain.
The ducking stool is mentioned in the Doomsday survey; it was extensively in use throughout the country from the fifteenth till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in one rare case at least—at Leominster—was used as lately as 1809.