Town of Ramsgate was known originally as the Red Cow; after a rather bad-tempered red-head barmaid. its name came from the Kentish fishermen who landed their catch next door at Wapping Old Stairs. From the balcony at low tide you can still see the post where pirates were executed at Execution Dock, being made to stand on a plank with a rope around their necks. The plank was tipped over, leaving the victims gasping for breath for 30 minutes. Still alive, they would then be cut down, squeezed into a metal gibbet, and left to sink in the muddy river bank at low tide. After being submerged three time by the incoming tide, and after an unpleasant death, they were left for the crows to pick at the rotting human flesh through the bars of the cage.
One famous pirate to die this way was Captain Kidd, in 1701. As a super star of the day he pulled a big crowed, among them an ex-lover. Kidd growled: 'I have lain with that bitch three times, now she comes to see me hanged'.
The badly rusted harness was only rediscovered in the mud this century. During the eighteenth century, the cellars of the pub were used as dungeons for convicts awaiting transportation to America and Australia. There is also a nearby pub called 'The Captain Kidd' after the famous execution.
Perhaps the most famous pirate to be tarred and hung in a cage was Captain Kidd (see image on the right), the inspiration for Treasure Island. In 1701 he was convicted of piracy and murder and was taken from Newgate Prison and executed in the same year. Rather gruesomely, on the first hanging attempt the rope broke and he only died on the second attempt. Even more gruesomely, his body was left tarred and gibbeted in an iron cage on the Thames riverbanks for more than twenty years!