Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree (32 page)

Moving westwards along Oxford Street, New Bond Street soon joins from the south. This was developed from the early 1700s and while few buildings of great architectural distinction are still to be seen, there are some fine Victorian shop-fronts because Bond Street became the place where the rich shopped for the expensive fripperies they regarded as essential to their lifestyle. Bond Street was the place to perambulate, to do a spot of window-gazing and shopping while also trying to see and be seen. The street was also a favoured residential area in early times and boasted many famous residents. These include Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), the cleric and satirical writer; Edward Gibbon (1737–94), author of the monumental
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
; William Pitt the Elder (1708–78), the Whig politician; and, by a neat coincidence, Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton, although not at the same time. New Bond Street has maintained its position as a location for fashionable and expensive shops.

Duke Street crosses Oxford Street and on the north side leads across Wigmore Street into Manchester Square and then Manchester Street. Here at no. 38 there was a great deal of excitement in 1814. This stemmed from the announcement that a virgin woman of sixty-four had been impregnated by a divine partner and that she was going to give birth to the second Christ, the specific date for this event being 19 October in that year. The woman concerned was Joanna Southcott (1750–1814), a farmer’s daughter from Devon. Born into the Anglican Church, she later converted to Methodism which she embraced with great ardour. She began to attract the limelight in 1792 when she declared that she had been divinely appointed to announce to the world the imminent Second Coming of Jesus. In that year she wrote a book of prophecies, the first of a series of writings which began to attract followers. In 1802 she started giving letters promising eternal life to those people she decided had divine favour. These included Mary Bateman who turned out to be a particularly brutal murderess. Joanna attracted a devoted following who showed their support by showering her with gifts in cash and kind. A chapel for her followers was opened in 1802. In 1813 she declared that she was pregnant and that the child, to be called ‘Shiloh’, would be the second Messiah. The nation was on tenterhooks when Joanna retired to bed to await her confinement. The promised date came and went but no baby arrived. With a great sense of anticlimax Christmas came and a few days later Joanna died. An autopsy showed that chronic flatulence and glandular swelling in the breasts had produced something of the appearance of pregnancy. She left a box of undisclosed ‘treasures’ which was only to be opened in the presence of twenty-four bishops at a time of national crisis. By the 1920s a number of these boxes had appeared, all vying with each other to be regarded as the genuine article. When one of them was opened in 1927, albeit with only one bishop present, it was found to contain nothing of significance. Some of Southcott’s supporters in the Panacea Society still aver that this box was not the real one.

At the junction of Oxford Street and Marylebone Lane, opposite Bond Street underground station, a lamp-post bears a small black plaque which reads, ‘Marylebone Lane follows the course of the ancient Tyburn stream now underground’. There is a slight depression in Oxford Street where it crosses the small valley that the Tyburn has made. At the junction of Oxford Street and Edgware Road another lamp-post bears a plaque also erected by Westminster City Council which is inscribed with the legend, ‘Site of Tyburn Gallows. For four centuries [sic] Londoners celebrated executions on this spot with public hangings.’ Four centuries seems something of an underestimate. In the complex of roads and bedlam of traffic that surround Marble Arch, there is a short slip road, used only by buses, called Tyburn Way while closer to Marble Arch itself is a plaque which reads:

The location is on an axis of two great Roman roads. One linked Colchester to the West Country, the other Watling Street (Edgware Road), linked with St Albans to the North. The Romans are thought to have built both these roads alongside the line of two older tracks which followed the high ground to avoid marshy land. Edgware Road is midway between the Tyburn and the Westbourne streams. For 600 years this crossroads was known as Tyburn. A plaque in the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road marks the site of where the gallows is thought to have stood from 1571 to 1759. The gallows were known as the ‘Tyburn Tree’ but were replaced by a moveable gallows where a Toll House for the turnpike road was built on its site. In the eighteenth century Oxford Street was called Tyburn Road and Park Lane was called Tyburn Lane … the last execution was at Tyburn in 1783.

This plaque can be found adjacent to Exit 3. The Triple Tree is reputed to have had each of its legs standing in adjoining parishes – those of St George, Hanover Square, St Marylebone and Paddington.

Marble Arch itself was designed by John Nash reputedly using as an example the Arch of Constantine in Rome. It was erected in 1827 and placed in front of Buckingham Palace. Originally it was intended to top the arch with a colossal bronze representation of ‘Victory’ but this was superseded by a decision to erect instead a statue of George IV by the sculptor Francis Chantrey (1781–1841). In the event this was located in Trafalgar Square. Marble Arch was moved to its present site in 1851 and in 1908 marooned on an island in the middle of what even then was a maelstrom of traffic chaos. None but senior members of the royal family and the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery are allowed to pass through it. The panels of the arch represent the Spirit of England inspiring Youth, Valour and Virtue and Peace and Plenty. A room in the attic of Marble Arch was at one time used by the Metropolitan Police.

To the west of Marble Arch a short way along the north side of Bayswater Road in Hyde Park Place is Tyburn Convent housing the Shrine of the Sacred Heart and the Tyburn Martyrs which contains relics recalling over a hundred Catholic martyrs who died at Tyburn. In the crypt is the Martyrs’ Altar over which stands a replica of Tyburn Tree. Stained glass windows commemorate other aspects of the life and works of those Catholics who died for their beliefs. On the external wall of the convent there is an image of the gallows with the inscription: ‘Tyburn Tree. The circular stone on the traffic island 300 paces east of this point marks the ancient gallows known as Tyburn Tree demolished in 1759.’ Above this stone is a green City of Westminster plaque which reads: ‘105 Catholic martyrs lost their lives at the Tyburn gallows near this site.’ Above this a further stone is inscribed: ‘To the glory of God and in honour of the sacred heart of Jesus, this stone was blessed and laid by Cardinal Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster on 10 December 1961 in honour of the glorious martyrs who laid down their lives in defence of the Catholic faith here on Tyburn Hill 1535–1681.’ Another plaque reads: ‘In 1585 Gregory Gunne predicted that one day a religious house would be founded at Tyburn. His prediction was fulfilled when Tyburn Convent was established in 1903.’

Just north of Marble Arch on the west side of Edgware Road is Connaught Place where a blue plaque at no. 2 commemorates Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–95). A descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, he was the father of Winston Churchill. His apparently precocious political abilities led to the prediction of a great future in the Conservative Party. At the age of thirty-seven, however, he was revealed as totally out of his depth when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his first and only budget was received with hostility and total derision. He resigned from political life and died while only in his mid-forties, almost certainly from the physical and mental effects of syphilis.

At the junction of Edgware Road and Seymour Street there is (January 2003) a café-bar appropriately called the Hanging Tree. Further up Edgware Road at no. 195 is a branch of Lloyds Bank where a stone gatepost is on display in the window on which the words ‘Tyburn Gate’ can just be descried. This is from one of the Tyburn toll gates and there is a commemorative plaque bearing this legend:

This stone … originally stood opposite the junction of Star Street and Edgware Road… . The stone is half a mile from the south end of Edgware Road where at the junction of that road with Oxford Street and Bayswater Road, Tyburn Turnpike house with three gates stood from about 1760 to 1829. Tyburn permanent triangular gallows stood from 1571 to 1759 in the position afterwards occupied by the Toll House. Tyburn was used as a place of execution from time immemorial until 1783. The first recorded execution took place in 1196.

On the opposite side of Edgware Road a little further to the south is a lamp-post with a City of Westminster plaque which reads: ‘Cato Street. In 1820 a conspiracy to overthrow the government was foiled at nearby 6, Cato Street.’ The conspirators were hanged at Newgate and then decapitated, the last time this form of execution took place in Britain.

In 1851 the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park. It was of course housed in the building that by popular acclaim became known as the Crystal Palace. The exhibition was an enormous success and Londoners took the Crystal Palace to their hearts. One of the conditions under which the exhibition had been staged was that the building had to be dismantled afterwards. This condition was very unpopular and all sorts of suggestions were put forward as to what use could be made of the building if only it was allowed to stay there. Arguably the most bizarre was that which proposed turning the Crystal Palace on its end to create a multi-storey glass tower 1,000 feet high. Had this ever happened, it would have created one of the most eye-catching features of London’s townscape and skyline in Victorian times.

At the north-eastern corner of Hyde Park is Cumberland Gate which was erected about 1744 and took its name from the Duke of Cumberland, the same who later inflicted a bloody defeat at Culloden on the Scottish clansmen who had supported Bonnie Prince Charlie. At first it was called Tyburn Gate.

Annually on the last Sunday in April, since 1910, a Roman Catholic bishop leads a silent procession along the route that has been described from Old Bailey to Tyburn in memory of the Catholic martyrs and it concludes with a Benediction close to the supposed location at which they died.

Tyburn and the stories surrounding it have left an indelible mark on the history of London. When they think of London, many people call to mind St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower, Buckingham Palace and perhaps today the Millennium Wheel. These attractions draw tourists in vast numbers. The traffic bedlam of Marble Arch does not encourage visitors to tarry. For all that, it is still a place of brooding memories and deserves to be recognised as such.

Tyburn doth deserve before them all
The Title and addition capital,
Of Arch or great Grand gallows of our Land,
Whilst all the rest like ragged Lackeys stand.

John Taylor (1578–1653)

Tyburn’s significance was reflected in a wide range of literature particularly from the sixteenth century. That it left its mark on the popular consciousness is evidenced through the growth in the availability of ballads and cheap prints which refer to its events. Some ballads not only described the life and crimes of the condemned but could be sung because they were accompanied by music. An example was published in 1594 entitled
The lamentable lyfe and death of John Sturman who suffered at Tyburne the 24 of Januarie
(Palmer 1988: 122).

A well-known ballad was that of Jack Hall, executed at Tyburn in December 1707. Hall, a pickpocket and housebreaker, had been arrested and branded on the cheek, before he was sentenced to death for burglary. Jack had been a chimney sweep in his youth and the ballad dwells on this:

O my name it is Jack Hall, chimney sweep, chimney sweep …
I have twenty pounds in store, that’s no joke, that’s no joke …
And my neck shall pay for all, when I die, when I die …

O I rode up Tyburn Hill in a cart,
O I rode up Tyburn Hill in a cart.
O I rode up Tyburn Hill, and ’twas there I made my will,
Saying, the best of friends must part, so farewell, so farewell.

Up the ladder I did grope, that’s no joke …
Up the ladder I did grope, and the hangman spread the rope,
O but never a word I said coming down, coming down.

(Palmer 1988: 124)

In 1647 the Charing Cross was destroyed. This was one of several crosses that had been erected by Edward I to mark the overnight resting places of the body of his first wife, Eleanor, as it made its way south from where she had died at Harby in Nottinghamshire in 1290. The Charing Cross marked her last resting place before her burial at Westminster Abbey, but in 1643, Parliament ordered its demolition as well as that of some of the other crosses. The popular ballad, ‘The Downfall of Charing Cross’, makes reference to Tyburn:

Methinks the common-council shou’d
Of it have taken pity,
’Cause, good old cross, it always stood
So firmly in the city.
Since crosses you so much disdain,
Faith, if I were as you,
For fear the King should rule again,
I’d pull down Tiburn too.

(Palmer 1979: 20)

One of the earliest references to Tyburn in literature appears in the fourteenth-century poem by William Langland,
Piers Plowman
, in the B and C texts. The former dates from about 1377 and contains an allusion to the advantages of learning so as to gain from benefit of clergy:

Wel may the barne blisse that hym to boke sette:
That lyuyne after letterure saved him lyf and soule!
Dominus par hereditatis mee is a meri verset,
That has taken fro Tyboune twenty stronge theves:
There lewed theves been lolled up loke how thei be saves!

Tyburn found its way into the writings of a wide range of literary figures such as Shakespeare, Jonson, Dryden, Boswell, Fielding and Pepys. Shakespeare mentions hanging or uses the popular oath ‘go hang’ in several of his plays. For example, the durability and strength of the scaffold are well depicted in
Hamlet
(Act V, sc. i):

CLOWN
. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?