The Dana
CLUE: Above the gate public hangings took place to the dismay of the prison reformer below. Take the leading letter of his name.
You're at the entrance to the prison where there is a stone bust of the prison reformer John Howard, unveiled in 1795.
Above the porter's lodge and to your left, is where the scaffold was constructed and where prisoners sentenced to death were hanged. This could attract crowds as large as 10,000!
Public executions were stopped in 1868, but apparently, crowds still gathered to witness the raising of a black flag when prisoners were executed within. Local people remember that following an execution (always at 8.00am) the prisoners would repeatedly bang their metal mugs on the window bars.
If you look behind you and to the right you will see the now disused platform 8 of the railway station, which is partly obscured by a wall from platform 7. This wall is here because the platform was used between 1868 and 1914 for transporting prisoners and the wall obscured people’s view of them.
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