Charing Cross Named after the final Eleanor Cross that once occupied the site, the statue that now stands at the centre of the Charing Cross roundabout is that of Charles I astride his charger. Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in May 1660, the new King Charles II wasted little time exacting his revenge on the folk who had been responsible for removing his father’s (Charles I) head. Eight of the so called regicides (king killers) were hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross a little later that year. The statue of King Charles was erected in 1675; however the site remained popular for public floggings long after this. View this site as it is today

Kennington Common If Tyburn met the needs of northern Londoners, the Surrey gallows at Kennington Common was the site of choice for executions south of the river until the late 1700s. Records indicate that since Sarah Elston was burned at the stake for killing her husband in 1678, more than 100 men and women were executed on gallows that stood on the site of St. Mark’s Church. A popular site for dispatching highway robbers, Kennington was also where 17 Jacobite rebels of the Manchester regiment, including their leader, one Colonel Frank Towneley, were hanged, drawn and quartered following the unsuccessful 1745 rising. During this period the common was also a popular venue for hosting cricket matches, as it remains to this day, located as it is, close to the Oval tube station. View this site as it is today

Pentonville Prison Following the closure of Newgate Prison in 1902, its hangman’s gallows were stripped down, shipped over and re-assembled when Pentonville became the main execution site for men in London. In addition, it also became the No 1 training centre for would-be hangmen, who all attended the one week course before they could become proficient in the ‘Art of Hanging’. Between 1902 and 1961, 120 men were hanged at Pentonville, an average of 2 per year, making it the busiest execution centre in England and Wales. The vast majority of these were common murderers, the most famous perhaps being the 48 year old, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. Crippen had poisoned his domineering wife at their home and had fled to Belgium with his secretary Ethel, with whom he was having an affair. From Antwerp, Crippen and Ethel boarded a ship bound for Canada. Unbeknown to them however, the ship’s captain had recognised the wanted posters being circulated for Crippen and sent a ship to shore telegraph informing the authorities. Police Inspector Drew from Scotland Yard was immediately dispatched for Canada aboard an even faster steamship. Arriving first in Canadian waters, Drew of the Yard ‘made his collars’, arresting both Crippen and Ethel, before returning them to London for trial. This drama all played out on the high seas, and only made possible by the latest technological advance of the telegraph, was one of the greatest media sensations of the early 20th century. Crippens met his end at 9am on Wednesday 23 November 1911, and following her trial for being an accessory to murder, Ethel was released. View this site as it is today

Holloway Prison Following the closure of Newgate Prison in 1902, Holloway became the main detention centre for women prisoners in London. As London’s female executions had previously been carried out at Newgate, Holloway now had the dubious honour of carrying these out as well. Between 1903 and 1955, a total of five women were put to death by hanging. The first women to be hanged were Amelia Sachs and Annie Walters in February 1903. The only double hanging of women to be carried out in Britain in modern times, the Finchley baby farmers had murdered at least 20 infants. Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in Britain; she met her maker on 13 July 1955, found guilty of murdering her boyfriend, shooting him five times with a revolver after he had refused to meet her over the Easter holidays. View this site as it is today

Tyburn As a rather large city, London required several places of execution, prior of course to convicts and felons being deported first to America and then to Australia. In summary, the Tower of London was generally reserved for traitors, Execution Dock at Wapping for pirates, Smithfield for heretics and witches, whilst the Tyburn Gallows was used to stretch the necks of general felons and all round bad-boys. As such, it would have been the most overworked place of execution in London. A site of historic significance, it sits at the junction of two Roman roads, where Edgware Road meets Bayswater Road. In operation from 1196, the already infamous Tyburn Tree received some serious modernising in 1571. A triangular-shaped gallows was erected which reached approximately six metres in height. The three-sided design reflected the need to hang more than a single person at a time. In fact, each beam could accommodate eight people at once; in total twenty-four could swing together in one go. As many as twelve hanging days would occur each year, each one being declared a public holiday for the labouring classes. Released from Newgate Prison, the condemned were taken to Tyburn on a cart and had to ride with the hangman and the prison chaplin. Peace-officers would lead the procession while immediately behind the cart marched a troop of soldiers and constables. The procession passed through Holborn, St Giles and Tyburn Road (Oxford Street). Stops made at inns on the way allowed prisoners the chance to indulge in a drop or two of the hard stuff. It was not uncommon for prisoners to arrive at the scaffold drunk and disorderly. When Jack Sheppard, a notorious highwayman and all round bad-boy, was hanged there, it was said that the event attracted an audience of 200,000 people. One of the most famous hangings was that of Oliver Cromwell, although he had died a few years earlier and been laid to rest at Westminster Abbey, following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, his body was exhumed and gibbeted at Tyburn. The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when John Austin, a highwayman, was hanged; after this, executions were moved to Newgate prison. View this site as it is today

Lincoln’s Inn Fields Today, the choice of many lawyers and surgeons relaxing over an al fresco picnic lunch is Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the largest public square in central London. In Tudor times however, this now tranquil site was the scene of several very gruesome public executions. The decades that followed Henry VIII’s split with the Roman Catholic Church were a turbulent time in England’s history. In 1586 a plot, the Babington Plot, was devised to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth and replace her with her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was ultimately foiled and the conspirators, along with their leader Anthony Babington, were convicted of high treason and sentenced to death. The well-established method of dispatching enemies of the state was by subjecting the victims to the delights of being hanged, drawn and quartered. “…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 4 quarters, to be disposed of at (the Queen’s) pleasure.” Although there is no plaque to mark the exact site of these and the several other hangings that followed at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, consensus suggests that the current bandstand marks the most likely spot. View this site as it is today

Stratford-le-Bow The decades that followed Henry VIII’s split with the Roman Catholic Church were a turbulent time in England’s history. When Mary, the eldest child of Henry VIII, became queen in 1553, she attempted to reverse all of fathers ‘wrongs’ and enforce the wholesale conversion of England back to Catholicism. In her attempts to do so, she is fondly referred to in the history books as Bloody Mary. The Protestant bishops of Latimer, Ridley and Archbishop Cranmer were just a few of the prominent people she had burnt at the stake. Again, whilst the history books recall the names of these important and influential men, often forgotten are the ordinary folk who suffered a similar fate for their beliefs, such as the Burnyng of the Stratford Martyrs that took place on 27 June 1556, at Stratford-le-Bow. Watched by a crowd of more than 20,000, eleven men and two women were tied to three stakes and burnt to death on a single fire. The thirteen ordinary folk that were executed on that black day included a blacksmith, a woodworker, a brewer, a weaver, a tailor and a labourer. As one of the women was pregnant at the time, perhaps the death toll should read 14. On 2 August 1879 the Martyrs’ Memorial, a large monument, was erected in the churchyard of St John the Baptist Church, Stratford Broadway, to commemorate the thirteen and many others who were executed in Stratford during these turbulent times. View this site as it is today

Horsemonger Lane Gaol Once the largest prison in the country, between 1800 and 1877 Horsemonger Lane Gaol saw 135 convicts sent to meet their maker, a total that included 131 men and 4 women. Closed in 1878, the gaol was eventually pulled down in 1881 and turned into a public park. Although nothing now remains of the gaol, Charles Dickens who attended one of the public hangings that took place on 13 November 1849, records the event itself. In a letter to The Times he wrote, “I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution this morning could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun.” The event he had witnessed was the hanging of a husband and wife, Fredrick and Maria Manning, who were being executed together after being found guilty of murder.In a case that became known as the “Bermondsey Horror,” they had killed Maria’s lover, Patrick O’Connor for his money and buried him under the kitchen floor.Dickens later based one of his characters on Maria Manning’s life… Mademoiselle Hortense, in Bleak House. View this site as it is today

Wandsworth Prison Still the largest prison in the country, Wandsworth Prison assumed the execution duties of Horsemonger Lane Gaol when that fine institution closed in 1878. Between 1878 and 1961, Wandsworth was the site of 135 executions, mainly of convicted murderers, however the body count also included 10 spies (one in WWI and nine in WWII) and two traitors. Perhaps the most infamous of these was William Joyce, the WWII Nazi propaganda broadcaster known as Lord Haw-Haw. This American-born, Irish-British Fascist had been tormenting the British public over the airwaves through his radio broadcasts that always began with the announcement… “Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling”. His message to the millions of Britons that regularly tuned in to his jeering, sarcastic broadcasts was that resistance was futile and surrender was their best option. Captured by British forces in May 1945, Joyce was eventually hanged on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth, aged 39. View this site as it is today

Fetter Lane The decades that followed Henry VIII’s split with the Roman Catholic Church were a turbulent time in England’s history. A little known site for the execution of Catholics in the 1590s was at the junction of Fleet Street and Fetter Lane. Among those executed there was Christopher Bales (Bayles) an English Catholic priest, who was hanged and quartered on 4 March 1590: “For treason and favouring foreign invasion”. There is some evidence to suggest that this site was a popular place for executions even before the Reformation, and remained in use until at least 1733. View this site as it is today

Shooters Hill Crossroads Within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Shooter’s Hill is one of the highest points in the London area. Set on the major road connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover, it was a common haunt for highwaymen and as such became a popular site for the gallows where such bad-boys were sent to meet their maker. Although the most notorious English highwaymen of the day appear to have met their end on the gallows at Tyburn, the crime of highway robbery remained so prevalent right up until the early 19th century that the Shooter’s Hill hangman was kept busy enough. View this site as it is today

Salmon and Ball Pub, Bethnal Green A series of unrests occurred between 1763 and 1769 that centred on London’s East End, as thousands of silk weavers took to the streets to protest about poor rates of pay, cheap imports and the introduction of mechanised looms. Known as the Spitalfield Riots, such unrest often resulted in violent attacks on houses and workshops where new machine looms were destroyed and woe betide any that stood in the rioters way. Organising themselves into the very efficient but highly illegal, trade union groups, they destroyed (silk-cutting) cheap imported goods and even the silk from weavers who had accepted a lower rate of pay. In September 1769, soldiers raided the Dolphin pub in Spitalfields in an attempt to break up a weavers trade union meeting that was taking place and arrest its ring leaders. Things again turned nasty when in the melee that followed, the soldiers fired on the weavers killing two and a further four were arrested. In the trials that followed, all four prisoners were sentenced to death, two of whom, John Doyle and John Valline, met their end in front of the Salmon and Ball pub on 6 December 1769. The hangings had looked in doubt for a while after a crowd attacked the men building the gallows. It later emerged that money had crossed hands in order to gain the conviction all four weavers. View this site as it is today