Tyburn & The Blood of 105 English Martyrs
I had an amazing day last Tuesday...I bet my American readers will love this post! I was asked to go with my 10 year old son's school year group on a trip in honour of the close of The Year of Faith and the month of Holy Souls. We went on the train up to London (about 40 minutes for us) and caught the tube from Bank to Marble Arch, where we visited Tyburn Convent. This is one of those incredible places, easily missed if you didn't know it was there, yet steeped with history of a dark and bloody kind, as Tyburn Field was the site of public execution for London from 1196 to 1783. Map showing the location of Tyburn gallows along with its immediate surroundings, from John Rocque's map of London, Westminster and Southwark (1746) Originally an Elm tree sufficed as the make-shift gallows at Tyburn, but in 1571 a more efficient structure called the "Tree" or "Triple Tree" was erected on the site. This consisted of a horizontal wooden triangle s...