Tyburn Tree - Marble Arch, London, UK
N 51° 30.797 W 000° 09.625
30U E 697027 N 5710729
This plaque is set into a paved area of a traffic island between Marble Arch and Edgware Road in west London.
Waymark Code: WMEK8M
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/08/2012
Views: 9
The plaque is a round memorial set into the
footpath of a traffic island. It has a major crack running across it and some
other lesser damage. The plaque has a metal cross at its centre and metal
lettering around the perimeter that reads:
"The Site of Tyburn Tree".
The History website (visit
link) tells us:
"Imagine the sight: a huge wooden triangle
with up to 24 bodies swinging from its beams by nooses, gasping their last
breaths. From the middle of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, this was the spectacle
that attracted thousands of spectators every week to London’s notorious Tyburn
Tree.
Executions took place at Tyburn for almost 600 years, with the first recorded as
William Longbeard in 1196 and the last as John Austen in 1783. In between, tens
of thousands of highwaymen, robbers, forgers, murderers, traitors and other
convicted men and women met their end at Tyburn. From the Reformation period
onwards, this included many Catholics who would not abandon their faith.
The original Tyburn trees used for hangings were a row of elms alongside an
underground stream called Tyburn Brook. But it was the huge triangular Tyburn
Tree, erected in 1571 and made of thick wooden crossbeams 3m (9ft) long on 5.5m
(18ft) legs, that is associated with the mass executions during the Tudor era
and afterwards.
The site of the Tyburn Tree is said to be at what is now Marble Arch, at the
north-east corner of Hyde Park. Some historians give a more precise location as
slightly to the north-west at Connaught Square. In fact, many bodies were found
there when the square was being built in the 1820s, so it’s possible that some
Tyburn victims were buried right where they died.
Mass executions took place on Mondays, when prisoners were transported from
Newgate Prison to Tyburn in an open wagon, often in their finest clothes. The
procession, which was watched by a large and enthusiastic crowd, wound down Snow
Hill, across Holborn Bridge into Holborn, down Broad St Giles into Oxford Street
and on to Tyburn.
Once at Tyburn, those due to die were put onto a specially built horse-drawn
carriage that was moved under the Tyburn Tree. Nooses were placed around their
necks and then the carriage driven away, leaving the condemned suspended until
they died. Reports tell of friends and relatives “tugging at hanging men’s feet
so that they should die quicker, and not suffer”.
Hangings were witnessed by thousands of spectators who would pay to sit in open
galleries erected especially for the occasion, as well as in rented upper-storey
rooms in houses and pubs. After the corpses were cut down from the gallows,
there was a rush to grab the bodies, as some believed their hair and body parts
were effective in healing diseases. They were also sought after by surgeons for
dissection.
In 1783, public executions were moved to Newgate Prison, as the crowds by the
route to Tyburn started to disturb the increasingly fashionable areas close to
Oxford Street.
The mass hangings at Tyburn are commemorated by a stone plaque in the ground on
one of the Marble Arch traffic islands. Also close to the site, at 8 Hyde Park
Place, is the Tyburn Convent. Founded at the beginning of the 20th century, it
contains a Shrine of the Martyrs in remembrance of more than 350 Catholics who
died at Tyburn during the Reformation."
The same webpage also tells of the (possible)
origins of a well known saying:
"Did You Know...
Prisoners were allowed to stop en route from Newgate Prison to Tyburn for a jug
of ale, but would then have to get back ‘on the wagon’, never to drink alcohol
again, which is thought to be the origin of the saying."