Tyburn was a village in the county of
Middlesex close to the current location of
Marble Arch. It took its name from the
Tyburn or Teo Bourne 'boundary stream',
[Gover J.E.B., Allen Mawer and F.M. Stenton The Place-Names of Middlesex. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, The, 1942: 6.] a tributary of the
River Thames which is now completely covered over between its source and its outfall into the Thames.
The name was almost universally used in literature to refer to the notorious and uniquely designed gallows, used for centuries as the primary location of the execution of London criminals.
History
The village was one of two
manors of the
parish of
Marylebone, which was itself named after the stream,
St Marylebone being a contraction of
St Mary's church by the bourne. Tyburn was recorded in the
Domesday Book and stood approximately at the west end of what is now
Oxford Street at the junction of two
Roman roads. The predecessors of Oxford Street and
Park Lane were roads leading to the village, then called Tyburn Road and Tyburn Lane respectively.
In the 1230s and 1240s the village of Tyburn was held by Gilbert de Sandford, the son of John de Sandford who had been the Chamberlain of Queen Eleanor. Eleanor had been the wife of King Henry II who encouraged her sons Henry and Richard to rebel against her husband, King Henry. In 1236 the city of London contracted with Sir Gilbert to draw water from Tyburn Springs, which he held, to serve as the source of the first piped water supply for the city. The water was supplied in lead pipes that ran from where Bond Street Station stands today, half a mile east of Hyde Park, down to the hamlet of Charing (Charing Cross), along Fleet Street and over the Fleet Bridge, climbing Ludgate Hill (by gravitational pressure) to a public conduit at Cheapside. Water was supplied for free to all comers.
Tyburn had significance from ancient times and was marked by a monument known as
Oswulf's Stone, which gave its name to the
Ossulstone Hundred of
Middlesex. The stone was covered over in 1822 when
Marble Arch was moved to the area, but it was shortly afterwards unearthed and propped up against the Arch. It has not been seen since 1869.
Tyburn gallows
Executions took place at
Tyburn until the 18th century (with the prisoners processed from
Newgate Prison in
the City, via
St Giles in the Fields and
Oxford Street), after which they were carried out at Newgate itself and at
Horsemonger Lane Gaol in
Southwark.
The first recorded execution took place at a site next to the stream in 1196.
William Fitz Osbern, the populist leader of the poor of London was cornered in the church of
St Mary le Bow. He was dragged naked behind a horse to Tyburn, where he was
hanged.
In 1571, the "Tyburn Tree" was erected near the modern
Marble Arch.
The "Tree" or "
Triple Tree" was a novel form of
gallows, comprising a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs (an arrangement known as a "three legged mare" or "three legged stool"). Several felons could thus be hanged at once, and so the gallows was occasionally used for mass executions, such as that on 23 June 1649 when 24 prisoners – 23 men and one woman – were hanged simultaneously, having been conveyed there in eight carts.
The Tree stood in the middle of the roadway, providing a major landmark in west London and presenting a very obvious symbol of the law to travellers. After executions, the bodies would be buried nearby or in later times removed for
dissection by
anatomists.
The first victim of the "Tyburn Tree" was Dr
John Story, a
Roman Catholic who refused to recognize
Elizabeth I. Among the more notable individuals suspended from the "Tree" in the following centuries were
John Bradshaw,
Henry Ireton and
Oliver Cromwell, who were already dead; they were disinterred and hanged at Tyburn in January 1661 on the orders of
Charles II in an act of posthumous revenge for their part in the beheading of his father.
The executions were public spectacles and proved extremely popular, attracting crowds of thousands. The enterprising villagers of Tyburn erected large spectator stands so that as many as possible could see the hangings (for a fee). On one occasion, the stands collapsed, reportedly killing and injuring hundreds of people. This did not prove a deterrent, however, and the executions continued to be treated as public holidays, with London apprentices being given the day off for them. One such event was depicted by
William Hogarth in his satirical print,
The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (1747).
Tyburn was commonly invoked in
euphemisms for capital punishment – for instance, "to take a ride to Tyburn" was to go to one's hanging, "Lord of the Manor of Tyburn" was the public hangman, "dancing the Tyburn jig" was the act of being hanged, and so on. Convicts would be transported to the site in an open ox-cart from Newgate Prison. They were expected to put on a good show, wearing their finest clothes and going to their deaths with
insouciance. The crowd would cheer a "good dying", but would jeer any displays of weakness on the part of the condemned.
On 19 April 1779,
clergyman James Hackman was hanged there following his 7 April murder of
courtesan and
socialite Martha Ray, his former lover, and the mistress of
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when
John Austin, a
highwayman, was hanged. The site of the gallows is now marked by three brass triangles mounted on the pavement on an island in the middle of Edgware Road at its junction with Bayswater Road. It is also commemorated by the Tyburn Convent,
[, accessed 10/8/07] a Catholic convent dedicated to the memory of martyrs executed there and in other locations for the Catholic faith.
Tyburn today remains the point at which
Watling Street, the modern
A5 begins. It continues in straight sections to
Holyhead. According to an 1850 publication., the site was at No. 49.
Connaught Square.
Some notable executions at Tyburn (in chronological order)
See also
