The Tower Hill Execution Block

One of the spookiest and also most famous places in London to visit is the Tower Hill Execution Block. The Tower Hill execution block is an elevated spot just northwest of the Tower of London and within steps of the Towerl Hill Tube Station. This is one of the oldest parts of London that dates back to being a settlement in the Bronze age and such later it was the site of a Roman village that was burnt down.  The site is also near All Hallows-by-the-tower, which was built in AD 680 and is still an excellent example of Romanesque architecture.

Beheading with an axe goes way back in history because like hanging it was a cheap a practical method of execution.  Beheadings was considered to be civilized by the Romans occupying London.  They tended to crucify outsiders.

This place, which is marked by a plaque is the site of hundreds of public executions including Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was beheaded by an angry mob in 1381, Sir Thomas More who became St Thomas More after being beheaded in 1535 for writing about Utopia and Thomas Cromwell who served as a lawyer to King Henry VIII of England and was executed for treason and heresy in 1540.  Other famous people who have died on Tower Hill include Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger who was a rebel leader during the reign of Mary I whose head was stolen after he was beheaded in 1554 and Sir Christopher Blount who was a secret agent who was beheaded for high treason in 1556 after conspiring in the rebellion of 1601.  The last individual to be executed on Tower Hill was Simon Fraser who was a Scottish Jacobite who supported the Stuart claim on the English crown and was eventually executed in April 1747.

There were two types of decapitations held at what is now a popular free London tourist attraction.  When a person is decapitated with a sword there no block used. People were executed standing up or while they were sitting in a chair.  The typical surd used was 48 inches long and weighted around four pounds.

After the rule of the Romans the British favored the high block method of execution in which the person would place their neck over a chopping block with the head pointing slightly downwards and then chopped off with an axe.  The blade on the woodsman style axe was usually about eight inches across with a five-foot handle.

It is hard to believe in modern day London that such horrors were to be seen in the center of town for centuries on end.