It's exactly 500 years today since the birth of Queen Mary I, a monarch best known for the executions of Protestants that led to her posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary". To mark the anniversary, we've tracked down the capital's most notorious public execution sites.
London's 11 most notorious public execution sites
A replica gallows outside the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping. The Prospect of Whitby is London's oldest riverside pub, dating back to 1520. The gallows commemorates the fact that the notorious "Hanging Judge" Jeffreys, scourge of the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion, drank there. Credit: GETTY
Oliver Smith, Digital Travel Editor
18 February 2016
The Telegraph
It's exactly 500 years today since the birth of Queen Mary I, a monarch best known for the executions of Protestants that led to her posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary". To mark the anniversary, we've tracked down the capital's most notorious public execution sites.
1. Smithfield
Many of the Marian Martyrs, Protestants executed under Queen Mary, met their demise at the Elms at Smithfield. St Bartholomew's Hospital features a plaque to commemorate several of them.
It was also the site of William Wallace’s execution in 1305. It happened much like in the movie, Braveheart (hung, drawn and quartered), though there is no evidence to support the blood curdling cry of “Freedom!” Wallace’s head was tarred and put on display atop London Bridge; his limbs placed (separately) in Perth, Stirling, Berwick and Newcastle, and a left quarter sent to Aberdeen (it’s said to be entombed in the walls of St Machar's Cathedral). A memorial to the Scot can be seen outside St Bartholomew's (above).
William Wallace on his final journey to Smithfield Credit: GETTY
Others killed at Smithfield include leader of the Peasants' Revolt Wat Tyler (cut down by the Mayor of London), John Badby (burned in a barrel) and Richard Rouse (boiled to death).
2. Tyburn
Tyburn was synonymous with public executions for almost 600 years. A mere village in 1196, when the first took place there, the site is now close to Marble Arch, one of central London’s busiest corners.
Crowds gather at Tyburn Credit: GETTY
A stone memorial can be seen on the pavement marking the spot where the Tyburn Tree, its distinctive three-sided gallows capable of hanging many people at once, once stood. Oliver Cromwell's exhumed body was, symbolically, hanged at Tyburn by the restored King Charles II in 1661, whose father, Charles I, was beheaded in 1649, leading to England becoming a republic for 11 years.
A stone memorial marks the spot Credit: GETTY
3. Newgate Prison
In use for more than 700 years – from 1188 to 1902 – and the site of London’s gallows after Tyburn was retired from duty in 1783. The executions took place in public – with the gallows set up on Newgate Street – until 1868, when public executions ended in Britain.
Cramped conditions inside the exercise yard at Newgate Prison Credit: GETTY
The prison, whose former inmates include Casanova, William Kidd and "Robinson Crusoe" author Daniel Defoe, was demolished in 1904. The Old Bailey occupies the main site, but head to the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate to see the old jail’s execution bell, Amen Court, which is home to a surviving wall, or The Viaduct Tavern, where five former cells of a neighbouring lock-up are visible in the basement.
A hanging outside the jail Credit: GETTY
4. The Tower and Tower Hill
10 Trinity Square, Tower Hill
Just a handful of prisoners were actually executed inside the grounds of the Tower. They include Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Robert Devereux, all of whom were given the chop on Tower Green – a memorial marks the spot (though there is now doubt that this is actually the exact site of the executions).
Victorians visit Tower Green Credit: GETTY
Far more met their demise on Tower Hill, in full gaze of the public, including Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. Today, the site of the scaffold is laid out as a memorial garden. The Hung Drawn & Quartered pub, on Great Tower St, would make a suitable spot for last orders.
An execution on Tower Hill Credit: GETTY
5. Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London’s largest public square has played host to a clutch of gruesome endings. Among them was Lord William Russell, convicted of plotting to kill Charles II. Jack Ketch, somewhat notorious for his lack of skill with the executioner’s axe, was given the job. The first blow led Russell to cry: “You dog, did I give you 10 guineas to use me so inhumanely?" – three further swipes were needed to dismember him. Ketch repeated the trick with the beheading of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (at Tower Hill), when it took him five chops to remove the head.
Another grisly execution at Lincoln’s Inn Fields was that of Anthony Babington for conspiring with Mary, Queen of Scots. The full sentence was as follows: “From (the Tower of London) you shall be drawn on a hurdle through the open streets to the place of execution, there to be hanged and cut down alive, and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off and thrown into the fire before your eyes. Then your head to be stricken off from your body, and your body shall be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of at (the Queen's) pleasure.” Legend has it Babington was still conscious when his “privy members” were being toasted.
A bandstand occupies the site of the executions. Afterwards, head to Sir John Soane’s museum, filled with curiosities. It holds candlelit evening openings each month.
TOP 10
Macabre London attractions
The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret
London Dungeon
Jeremy Bentham's skeleton at London University College
Hyde Park Pet Cemetery
The Hunterian Museum
Highgate Cemetery (or Abney Park)
Grant Museum of Zoology (look out for the moles in a jar)
The Clink Prison Museum
The crypt at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street
The Langham Hotel (it's reputed to be haunted - steer clear of Room 333)
6. Execution Dock
A pirate meets his fate at Execution Dock Credit: GETTY
Until the end of the 18th century, the bodies of pirates were often left on the noose until at least three tides has washed over their heads. Others were displayed at Cuckold’s Point, on the Rotherhithe peninsula, or Blackwall Point, on the Greenwich peninsula, as a warning to others.
Perhaps the most famous execution here was that of Captain Kidd in 1701. A riverside pub is now named in his honour, while a replica of the gallows can be seen outside a second (The Prospect of Whitby).
The Prospect of Whitby pub on the north bank of the Thames in Wapping, Tower Hamlets
7. St Paul’s Churchyard
Just a handful have been executed in the shadow of London’s finest cathedral, including Henry Garnet, convicted of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. Though sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, sympathetic onlookers reportedly pulled on the priest’s legs to end the ordeal early.
The exact spot of the execution is not known. Get your fix of the macabre by inspecting the final resting places of Nelson, Wellington, Wren et al in the cathedral and its crypt.
8. Banqueting House
Charles I lost his head on a temporary gallows erected outside Banqueting House on Whitehall. A bust of the former king marks the spot. Banqueting House, the only surviving part of the Palace of Whitehall, can be visited for a shade more than a fiver.
Refresh yourself at The Old Shades - a characterful little Victorian pub clad in wood and with real ales behind the bar, it features in our Monopoly pub crawl.
The king cops it outside Banqueting House Credit: GETTY
9. Charing Cross
Charing Cross was the site of one of the Eleanor crosses. A repilica stands in the spot now. The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with tall crosses of which three survive nearly intact in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had the crosses erected between 1291 and 1294 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, marking the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to London
Site of the final Eleanor Cross, inexplicably torn down in the 17th century (before the Victorians built the replica), this spot traditionally marks the centre of London and was once the location for all manner of public brutality. Alongside the statue of Charles I once stood a pillory, where ne'er-do-wells were flogged. Executions also took place, including those of several of the regicides of the beheaded king. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, recalls the carnival atmosphere that the square once had, with street entertainers and numerous taverns (such as the Golden Cross, with features in David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers) attracting a boisterous crowd.
Charing Cross as it once looked Credit: GETTY
10. Old Palace Yard
The grounds in front of the Palace of Westminster was where Guy Fawkes met his end in 1606 – symbolically, opposite the building he had tried to destroy.
The execution of Guy Fawkes Credit: GETTY
Sir Walter Raleigh joined him 12 years later, and took it with aplomb, his final words being a somewhat impatient: "Strike, man, strike!"
11. Kennington Common
South London’s equivalent to Tyburn were the Surrey Gallows, which stood on the site of St Mark’s Church, close to Oval underground station. Records suggest at least 129 men and 12 women were sent to meet their maker here, including a number of Jacobites and highway robbers.
Crowds flock to a hanging at Kennington Common Credit: GETTY
The Mass Meeting of Chartists on Kennington Common in 1848, the world's first photograph of a crowd
For a remarkably detailed record of public executions in Britain, see www.capitalpunishmentuk.org
London's 11 most notorious public execution sites - Telegraph
London's 11 most notorious public execution sites
A replica gallows outside the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping. The Prospect of Whitby is London's oldest riverside pub, dating back to 1520. The gallows commemorates the fact that the notorious "Hanging Judge" Jeffreys, scourge of the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion, drank there. Credit: GETTY
Oliver Smith, Digital Travel Editor
18 February 2016
The Telegraph
It's exactly 500 years today since the birth of Queen Mary I, a monarch best known for the executions of Protestants that led to her posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary". To mark the anniversary, we've tracked down the capital's most notorious public execution sites.
1. Smithfield
Many of the Marian Martyrs, Protestants executed under Queen Mary, met their demise at the Elms at Smithfield. St Bartholomew's Hospital features a plaque to commemorate several of them.
It was also the site of William Wallace’s execution in 1305. It happened much like in the movie, Braveheart (hung, drawn and quartered), though there is no evidence to support the blood curdling cry of “Freedom!” Wallace’s head was tarred and put on display atop London Bridge; his limbs placed (separately) in Perth, Stirling, Berwick and Newcastle, and a left quarter sent to Aberdeen (it’s said to be entombed in the walls of St Machar's Cathedral). A memorial to the Scot can be seen outside St Bartholomew's (above).
William Wallace on his final journey to Smithfield Credit: GETTY
Others killed at Smithfield include leader of the Peasants' Revolt Wat Tyler (cut down by the Mayor of London), John Badby (burned in a barrel) and Richard Rouse (boiled to death).
2. Tyburn
Tyburn was synonymous with public executions for almost 600 years. A mere village in 1196, when the first took place there, the site is now close to Marble Arch, one of central London’s busiest corners.
Crowds gather at Tyburn Credit: GETTY
A stone memorial can be seen on the pavement marking the spot where the Tyburn Tree, its distinctive three-sided gallows capable of hanging many people at once, once stood. Oliver Cromwell's exhumed body was, symbolically, hanged at Tyburn by the restored King Charles II in 1661, whose father, Charles I, was beheaded in 1649, leading to England becoming a republic for 11 years.
A stone memorial marks the spot Credit: GETTY
3. Newgate Prison
In use for more than 700 years – from 1188 to 1902 – and the site of London’s gallows after Tyburn was retired from duty in 1783. The executions took place in public – with the gallows set up on Newgate Street – until 1868, when public executions ended in Britain.
Cramped conditions inside the exercise yard at Newgate Prison Credit: GETTY
The prison, whose former inmates include Casanova, William Kidd and "Robinson Crusoe" author Daniel Defoe, was demolished in 1904. The Old Bailey occupies the main site, but head to the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate to see the old jail’s execution bell, Amen Court, which is home to a surviving wall, or The Viaduct Tavern, where five former cells of a neighbouring lock-up are visible in the basement.
A hanging outside the jail Credit: GETTY
4. The Tower and Tower Hill
10 Trinity Square, Tower Hill
Just a handful of prisoners were actually executed inside the grounds of the Tower. They include Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Robert Devereux, all of whom were given the chop on Tower Green – a memorial marks the spot (though there is now doubt that this is actually the exact site of the executions).
Victorians visit Tower Green Credit: GETTY
Far more met their demise on Tower Hill, in full gaze of the public, including Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. Today, the site of the scaffold is laid out as a memorial garden. The Hung Drawn & Quartered pub, on Great Tower St, would make a suitable spot for last orders.
An execution on Tower Hill Credit: GETTY
5. Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London’s largest public square has played host to a clutch of gruesome endings. Among them was Lord William Russell, convicted of plotting to kill Charles II. Jack Ketch, somewhat notorious for his lack of skill with the executioner’s axe, was given the job. The first blow led Russell to cry: “You dog, did I give you 10 guineas to use me so inhumanely?" – three further swipes were needed to dismember him. Ketch repeated the trick with the beheading of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (at Tower Hill), when it took him five chops to remove the head.
Another grisly execution at Lincoln’s Inn Fields was that of Anthony Babington for conspiring with Mary, Queen of Scots. The full sentence was as follows: “From (the Tower of London) you shall be drawn on a hurdle through the open streets to the place of execution, there to be hanged and cut down alive, and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off and thrown into the fire before your eyes. Then your head to be stricken off from your body, and your body shall be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of at (the Queen's) pleasure.” Legend has it Babington was still conscious when his “privy members” were being toasted.
A bandstand occupies the site of the executions. Afterwards, head to Sir John Soane’s museum, filled with curiosities. It holds candlelit evening openings each month.
TOP 10
Macabre London attractions
The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret
London Dungeon
Jeremy Bentham's skeleton at London University College
Hyde Park Pet Cemetery
The Hunterian Museum
Highgate Cemetery (or Abney Park)
Grant Museum of Zoology (look out for the moles in a jar)
The Clink Prison Museum
The crypt at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street
The Langham Hotel (it's reputed to be haunted - steer clear of Room 333)
6. Execution Dock
Actors dressed as pirates hang in gibbets at Execution Dock in Wapping, east London, April 2014
For more than 400 years pirates, smugglers and mutineers sentenced to death by Admiralty courts swung at this scaffold on the banks of the Thames at Wapping. Most were brought from Marshalsea, a prison in Southwark (on what is now Borough High Street – look out for a plaque on the prison's last remaining wall). The execution procession took them over London Bridge and past the Tower, with a stop at a public house, for a final quart of ale, customary.
A pirate meets his fate at Execution Dock Credit: GETTY
Until the end of the 18th century, the bodies of pirates were often left on the noose until at least three tides has washed over their heads. Others were displayed at Cuckold’s Point, on the Rotherhithe peninsula, or Blackwall Point, on the Greenwich peninsula, as a warning to others.
Perhaps the most famous execution here was that of Captain Kidd in 1701. A riverside pub is now named in his honour, while a replica of the gallows can be seen outside a second (The Prospect of Whitby).
The Prospect of Whitby pub on the north bank of the Thames in Wapping, Tower Hamlets
7. St Paul’s Churchyard
Just a handful have been executed in the shadow of London’s finest cathedral, including Henry Garnet, convicted of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. Though sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, sympathetic onlookers reportedly pulled on the priest’s legs to end the ordeal early.
The exact spot of the execution is not known. Get your fix of the macabre by inspecting the final resting places of Nelson, Wellington, Wren et al in the cathedral and its crypt.
8. Banqueting House
Charles I lost his head on a temporary gallows erected outside Banqueting House on Whitehall. A bust of the former king marks the spot. Banqueting House, the only surviving part of the Palace of Whitehall, can be visited for a shade more than a fiver.
Refresh yourself at The Old Shades - a characterful little Victorian pub clad in wood and with real ales behind the bar, it features in our Monopoly pub crawl.
The king cops it outside Banqueting House Credit: GETTY
9. Charing Cross
Charing Cross was the site of one of the Eleanor crosses. A repilica stands in the spot now. The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with tall crosses of which three survive nearly intact in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had the crosses erected between 1291 and 1294 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, marking the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to London
Site of the final Eleanor Cross, inexplicably torn down in the 17th century (before the Victorians built the replica), this spot traditionally marks the centre of London and was once the location for all manner of public brutality. Alongside the statue of Charles I once stood a pillory, where ne'er-do-wells were flogged. Executions also took place, including those of several of the regicides of the beheaded king. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, recalls the carnival atmosphere that the square once had, with street entertainers and numerous taverns (such as the Golden Cross, with features in David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers) attracting a boisterous crowd.
Charing Cross as it once looked Credit: GETTY
10. Old Palace Yard
The grounds in front of the Palace of Westminster was where Guy Fawkes met his end in 1606 – symbolically, opposite the building he had tried to destroy.
The execution of Guy Fawkes Credit: GETTY
Sir Walter Raleigh joined him 12 years later, and took it with aplomb, his final words being a somewhat impatient: "Strike, man, strike!"
11. Kennington Common
South London’s equivalent to Tyburn were the Surrey Gallows, which stood on the site of St Mark’s Church, close to Oval underground station. Records suggest at least 129 men and 12 women were sent to meet their maker here, including a number of Jacobites and highway robbers.
Crowds flock to a hanging at Kennington Common Credit: GETTY
The Mass Meeting of Chartists on Kennington Common in 1848, the world's first photograph of a crowd
For a remarkably detailed record of public executions in Britain, see www.capitalpunishmentuk.org
London's 11 most notorious public execution sites - Telegraph
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