Information for record number MWA4613:
Site of gallows

Summary The site of gallows, a wooden structure from which criminals were executed by hanging. These gallows, which date to the Post Medieval period, are clearly marked on a map of 1760. The place-name gallows Hill survives.
What Is It?  
Type: Gallows, Punishment Place
Period: Post-medieval (1540 AD - 1750 AD)
Where Is It?  
Parish: Warwick
District: Warwick, Warwickshire
Grid Reference: SP 29 63
(Data represented on this map shows the current selected record as a single point, this is for illustrative purposes only and does not represent an accurate or complete representation of archaeological sites or features)
Level of Protection National - Old SMR PrefRef (Grade: )
Sites & Monuments Record
Description

  
Source Number  

1 Gallows marked on Beighton's map.
2 'Gallows Hill' marked.
3 'Gallowe medowe' 1585.
4 There is certainly no evidence of a Gallows on either Beighton
1 or Greenwood and alll that survives onto the OS 1st edition is the name
2, which is clearly a place name of some antiquity
3. The original NGR was marginal so was moved to incorporate the evidence below.
5 The site is first drawn on a detailed map of Parts of Parishes of Warwick St Nicholas and Bishops Tachbrook (WRO CR1886/M21). The Gallows appear to lie in an enclosure with a path leading directly towards them from Gallows Hill.
6 Gallows Street is so named in 1823, an earlier name being Warytre Streete in 1481, Warytree Street in 1610, Wary Street in 1654, Warrytree Street in 1656 (Dugdale) from the OE Wearg 'felon' and treow 'tree'.
7 "Bending round to the left we are in Gallows Street, so called as being the way through which prisoners were taken or drawn to the Gallows, and through which the bier from St. Nicholas went and returned with the bodies of those who had been executed.
 
Sources
Source No: 6
Source Type: Bibliographic reference
Title: The Place Names of Warwickshire, (EPNS)
Author/originator: Mawer A & Stenton F M (eds)
Date: 1936
Page Number: 368
Volume/Sheet: XIII
   
Source No: 7
Source Type: Bibliographic reference
Title: History of Warwick
Author/originator: T Kemp
Date: 1905
Page Number: 198
Volume/Sheet:
   
Source No: 3
Source Type: Bibliographic reference
Title: The Place Names of Warwickshire, (EPNS)
Author/originator: Mawer A & Stenton F M (eds)
Date: 1936
Page Number: 368
Volume/Sheet: XIII
   
Source No: 5
Source Type: Correspondence
Title: General Correspondance related to Warwick's Gallows
Author/originator: C Coutts / J M Dalgleish
Date: 1996
Page Number:
Volume/Sheet:
   
Source No: 2
Source Type: Map
Title: Map 1886
Author/originator: Ordnance Survey
Date: 1886
Page Number:
Volume/Sheet: 6" series
   
Source No: 1
Source Type: Map
Title: Warwickshire
Author/originator: Beighton H
Date: 1722
Page Number:
Volume/Sheet:
   
Source No: 4
Source Type: Verbal communication
Title: Pers. Comm. Giles Carey
Author/originator: G Carey
Date: 2009-2014
Page Number:
Volume/Sheet:
   
Images:  
There are no images associated with this record.  
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Glossary

 
Word or Phrase
Description  
source Antiquity Antiquity is a journal about archaeological research and is published four times each year. The journal includes articles about archaeology from all over the world, from the Palaeolithic to the present. Each issue includes an editorial, brief reports, current news in colour, research papers and notes, full review coverage of new archaeological books and occasional special sections on selected topics. back
source EPNS The Journal of the English Place-Name Society. The English Place-Name Society was founded in 1923 to carry out a survey of English place-names. Its journal contains reports as well as articles about place-names or specific place-name studies, book reviews and bibliographies. The journal is published annually. Individual volumes also exist for most counties; that for Warwickshire was published in 1936. back
period Medieval 1066 AD to 1539 AD (the 11th century AD to the 16th century AD)

The medieval period comes after the Saxon period and before the post medieval period.

The Medieval period begins in 1066 AD.
This was the year that the Normans, led by William the Conqueror (1066 – 1087), invaded England and defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in East Sussex.
The Medieval period includes the first half of the Tudor period (1485 – 1603 AD), when the Tudor family reigned in England and eventually in Scotland too.

The end of the Medieval period is marked by Henry VIII’s (1509 – 1547) order for the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the years running up to 1539 AD. The whole of this period is sometimes called the Middle Ages.
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period Post Medieval About 1540 AD to 1750 AD (the 16th century AD to the 18th century AD)

The Post Medieval period comes after the medieval period and before the Imperial period.

This period covers the second half of the reign of the Tudors (1485 – 1603), the reign of the Stuarts (1603 – 1702) and the beginning of the reign of the Hannoverians (1714 – 1836).
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monument SITE * Unclassifiable site with minimal information. Specify site type wherever possible. back
monument PATH * A way made for pedestrians, especially one merely made by walking (often not specially constructed). back
monument GALLOWS * A structure used for execution by hanging. Usually two uprights and a cross-piece, from which the offender is suspended by the neck. back
monument PUNISHMENT PLACE * A site where acts of corporal and capital punishment were carried out. back
monument ENCLOSURE * An area of land enclosed by a boundary ditch, bank, wall, palisade or other similar barrier. Use specific type where known. back
monument STRUCTURE * A construction of unknown function, either extant or implied by archaeological evidence. If known, use more specific type. back
monument ROUND * A small, Iron Age/Romano-British enclosed settlement found in South West England. back

* Copyright of English Heritage (1999)

English Heritage National Monuments Record