Plaque

(relocated) Tower of London execution site - 1972

Tower of London execution site - 1972
Inscription

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.

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.

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This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Tower of London execution site - 1972

Also at this site i

Anne Boleyn beheaded - 1946

Anne Boleyn beheaded - 1946

This image comes from the 1946 short documentary film 'Prisoners of the Tower...

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Tower of London execution site

Tower of London execution site

Catling wrote the poem as well as creating the sculpture. Doesn't that cushio...

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Tower of London execution site - c.1910

Tower of London execution site - c.1910

This image came from Twitter via Londonist, and from the children's clothes m...

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Tower scaffold - 1946

Tower scaffold - 1946

See Anne Boleyn's plaque for when/how this plaque was displayed.

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Nearby Memorials

Katherine Mackay Low

Katherine Mackay Low

SW11, Battersea High Street, 108

These two plaques tell a complex story which we only fully understood once we found this UCL paper. Erskine Clarke, vicar of St Mary's Ch...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Tachbrook - Wren

Tachbrook - Wren

SW1, Bessborough Street

Pulford Street and the Equitable Gas Works used to occupy this six acre site.  In the 1930s the Pulford Street Site Committee was respons...

2 subjects commemorated
St Stephen Walbrook church

St Stephen Walbrook church

EC4, Walbrook, 39, St Stephen Walbrook church

The small blue plaque is below the Palladian window to the left of our photo. Before 2011 the large blue plaque was where the red informa...

10 subjects commemorated
John 'Jack' Kennedy

John 'Jack' Kennedy

N5, Drayton Park, 166

John 'Jack' Kennedy, 1935 - 2003, campaigner for justice, lived here 1960 - 1984. London Borough of Islington Islington People's Plaque

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
Edward de Vere's mansion

Edward de Vere's mansion

N16, Stoke Newington Church Street, 171-3

There was a mediaeval mansion on this site, built in the 14th century for Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. In 1717 Edward Newens, a local ...

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator