Site of scaffold
In the first 2 minutes of the 1972 CCF film "The Boy Who Turned Yellow" some boys are taken on a school trip to the Tower of London and we see this memorial. The inscription is about as terse as it's possible to be but it does the job. Certainly minimal by comparison with the glass cushion monument erected in 2006.
And then we came across an article in the New York Post (July 2017) that locates this plaque - it's one of the unusual objects decorating the bar at the Yeoman Warders’ Club: "Among them is a plaque that reads “SITE OF SCAFFOLD” – kept as a souvenir after it was removed from the site where executions took place. For good measure, the Yeoman Gaoler’s axe hangs just above it, a ghoulish reminder of the gruesome past."
Site: Tower of London execution site (5 memorials)
EC3, Tower Green, Tower of London
Members of royalty sentenced to death were spared the ordeal of public execution on Tower Hill. This spot, inside the very secure Tower of London, was reserved just for them, and apparently the executions took place under cover. Excavations have confirmed the existence of a building here.
But one also hears that Lady Jane Grey's prison windows looked out over Tower Green and that she must have seen her scaffold being erected, which would not have been the case had it been enclosed.
2017: Within a few weeks we came across not just one but two predecessors to the glass cushion which has been here since 2006. We're being very nerdish, publishing them as 'lost' memorials, even though the current location of one of them is actually known.
2023: We watched the 1946 short documentary film 'Prisoners of the Tower' from which we captured images of 2 other plaques at the site.
2023: Using Museum of London data Londonist have analysed the who, why, where, when and how of London executions. To see the more than 100 executees on London Remembers click here.
