Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Coordinates: 51°30′31″N 0°04′42″W / 51.5085°N 0.0782°W / 51.5085; -0.0782
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, just outside the limits of the City of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Formerly it was part of the Tower Liberty under the direct administrative control of Tower. Part of one of the oldest parts of London, archeological evidence shows that there was a settlement on the hill in the Bronze Age and much later a Roman village that was burnt down during the Boudica uprising.
A nearby church, All Hallows-by-the-Tower, is known for fragments of Romanesque architecture dating back to AD 680.
It is the site of the Tower Hill Memorial, Tower Gateway DLR station, and Tower Hill tube station. The street named Tower Hill is a short stretch of the A3211 between Byward Street and a junction with Minories and Tower Hill Terrace.
[edit] Executions
Public executions of high-profile criminals were often carried out on Tower Hill, including:
- 1381 - Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury[1] (beheaded by an angry mob)
- 1381 - Sir Robert Hales[1]
- 1388 - Sir Simon de Burley[1]
- 1397 - Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel[1]
- 1440 - Rev. Richard Wyche, Vicar of Deptford[1]
- 1462 - John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford[1]
- 1470 - John Tiptoft, 1st Earl of Worcester[1]
- 1495 - Sir William Stanley[2]
- 1497 - James Tuchet,[2] a commander of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497
- 1499 - Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick[2]
- 1510 - Edmund Dudley
- 1510 - Sir Richard Empson
- 1521 - Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham[2]
- 1535 - John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester[2]
- 1535 - Sir Thomas More,[2] ex-Lord Chancellor
- 1536 - George Boleyn, brother of Anne Boleyn
- 1537 - Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy[2]
- 1538 - Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon[3]
- 1540 - Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex[3]
- 1547 - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey[3]
- 1552 - Sir Ralph Vane
- 1552 - Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset[3]
- 1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt[3]
- 1554 - Lord Guildford Dudley
- 1572 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk[3]
- 1615 - Sir Gervase Helwys
- 1631 - Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven
- 1641 - Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford[3]
- 1645 - William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury[4]
- 1662 - Sir Henry Vane[4]
- 1683 - Col. Algernon Sidney[4]
- 1685 - James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth[4]
- 1716 - James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater[4]
- 1746 - William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock
- 1746 - Robert Boyd (of Clan Boyd)
- 1747 - Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat[4]
[edit] References
Annotations
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Tower Hill was the site of many public executions, usually beheadings, as opposed to more private executions which took place inside the Tower of London.
This is the former execution site on Tower Hill as it currently appears:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57351475@N00/19088474/
and
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great site: thanks
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Grim edifice, superbly captured. Those of us several thousand miles away thank you.