Tower Hill Scaffold Site

On the western edge of Trinity Square Gardens, you will find a small square with a horrific history. This was almost the exact site of the Tower Hill Scaffold, where more than 125 people were put to death.

Executions took place at this site from around the 1380s through to 1780, when executions were moved to Tyburn.

Although Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir Robert Hales are listed as having been executed here, in 1381, the official records state that Sir Simon de Burley, K.G., was the first person executed here, in 1388.

The executions were highly ceremonial, with the ceremony often beginning the night before. Often prisoners would be taken by horse and cart, through the streets, being fed ale or mead, on their way to the scaffold. People would line the streets, often hurling vegetables, sometimes stones, at the poor wretch who was about to die.

Once at the scaffold site, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people would gather with their families, to witness the execution.

All of these were public executions, with various methods being employed to dispatch the condemned.

Beheading.

Beheading was reserved for high-ranking prisoners. The executioner usually used an axe and it was customary for the prisoner to pay the executioner, to ensure a swift death.

The last beheading, at Tower Hill, was that of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, a Jacobite leader, who was found guilty of treason by the House of Lords, for his involvement in the Jacobite uprising of 1745.

Hanging.

For the majority of people, executed at Tower Hill, they were hanged by the neck until they were dead. Dead. Dead.

The last hangings, at Tower Hill, were of three people involved in the Gordon Riots, where anti-Catholic sentiment had resulted in several days of rioting in London. The names of two of those executed are Charlotte Gardiner and Mary Roberts. The name of the third individual has been lost to time.

Other executions, at Tower Hill, took place within the walls of the Tower, away from public scrutiny.

Below is a list of some of the people executed, or martyred, at the Tower Hill Scaffold site.

• 1388 - Simon de Burley, K. G.
• 1397 - Richard Fitzalan, 3rd Earl of Arundel
• 1440 - Reverend Richard Wyche, Vicar of Deptford
• 1462 - John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford
• 1470 - John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester
• 1495 - Sir William Stanley, K.G.
• 1497 - James Tuchet, 7th Baron Audley
• 1499 - Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick
• 1521 - Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham
• 1535 - John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester
• 1535 - Sir Thomas More
• 1537 - Thomas Darcy, Lord Darcy of Templehurst, K.G.
• 1538 - Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon
• 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, K.G.
• 1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
• 1552 - Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset
• 1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt
• 1572 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
• 1641 - Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
• 1645 - William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
• 1662 - Sir Harry Vane
• 1683 - Colonel Algernon Sidney
• 1685 - James, Duke of Monmouth
• 1716 - James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater
• 1746 - William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock
• 1746 - Arthur Elphinstone, 6th Lord Balmerino
• 1747 - Simon Fraser, Lord lovat