Taking a ride to Tyburn: The Tyburn Tree

Q. What was the Tyburn Tree

A. The 'tree' was the gallows at Tyburn, London. So 'to take a ride to Tyburn' was to go to one's hanging or, by inference, to one's death. In its heyday, Tyburn was the principal place of public execution in London and the most famous in England.

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Q. When was this

A. Between 1388 and 1783. The first permanent gallows were constructed in June 1571, for the execution of John Story, 'a Romish Canonical Doctor'. The triangular structure was so large that it could take 21 people at a time. The last person to be hanged at the site was one John Austin, after which time public executions in London took place outside Newgate Prison in the City until it was demolished in 1902.

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Q. Where was Tyburn

The site is now underneath the one-way system at Marble Arch and there are three brass triangles commemorating the gallows on the corner of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road.

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Q. Is it true that hangings at Tyburn were major public spectacles

A. Hanging days were public holidays, because it was believed that the sight of an execution would prove a deterrent to potential criminals. The condemned would often dress in their best clothes and make a great show of bravery. One French commentator observed that, 'The English are a people that laugh at the delicacy of other nations who make it such a mighty matter to be hanged.'

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Q. What about the hangman

A. 'The Lord of the Manor of Tyburn' had a plum job. Not only did he receive the victims' clothes, he would, after the execution, repair to a pub in Fleet Street, where he would sell the rope at 6d (2.5p) an inch.

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Q. And a Tyburn Ticket

A. This was a certificate first issued by William III in 1698, which allowed a prosecutor who had secured a capital conviction against a criminal to be exempted from any parish duties and ward offices in the parish in which the crime was committed. These were highly valued, and could be sold on - once - sometimes fetching up to �300. This act was repealed in 1818, though a Mr Pratt of Bond Street claimed exemption from jury service in 1856 on the strength of possession of one of these tickets.

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Q. Did any famous names end up there

A. Yes. Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, who denounced Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, met her end there in 1534; Oliver Plunkett, the last English Catholic martyr, was put to death there in 1681; and a crowd of 200,000 watched the highwayman Jack Sheppard's execution at Tyburn in 1714. After the Restoration in 1660, the body of Oliver Cromwell was exhumed, hanged at Tyburn 'from dawn until dusk', then his corpse beheaded and buried in a pit at the foot of the gallows.

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By Simon Smith