In 1954 Ruth Ellis shot Derek Bentley producing these bullet holes. Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain.
The naming error on the plaque is interesting. Derek Bentley (1933-53) was a name also connected with murder and hanging, but in his case he was the one convicted of murder and hanged, 2 years before Ellis. The Bentley case became a cause célèbre, and led to a 45-year-long campaign to win Bentley a posthumous pardon, which was granted in 1993, with his murder conviction being quashed in 1998.
The holes in our photo are to the right, east, of the pub's west-most door (the one in our photo) and we guess are the supposed bullet holes. We're no expect on bullet holes - is this what they look like? Or would the ceramic tiles have broken up?
Site: Ruth Ellis bullet holes - lost plaques (2 memorials)
NW3, South Hill Park, Magdala pub
The Islington Tribune tells the story of the landlady in the early 1990s, Mary Watson, drilling the holes and erecting the plaque to give tourists something to look at. The sightseers were brought by the operators of the ‘Murder Coach’ tours, who had added The Magdala to their tours which already included the Kray brothers’ Blind Beggar pub and the Jack the Ripper alleys of the East End. The first plaque had two errors: the name of the victim and the date of the murder. The date error remained on the second plaque.
The earliest available Google street view, 2008, does not show the sign.
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