Plaque

(lost) Tower scaffold - 1946

Tower scaffold - 1946
Inscription

On this site stood a scaffold on which were executed:-
Queen Anne Boleyn - 1536
Margaret, Countess of Salisbury - 1541
Queen Katherine Howard - 1542
Jane, Viscountess Rochford - 1542
Lady Jane Grey - 1554
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex - 1601
also near this spot was beheaded Lord Hastings - 1483.

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

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.

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This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Tower scaffold - 1946

Subjects commemorated i

Anne Boleyn

Second wife of Henry VIII and so Queen of England, 1533 to 1536.  Though marr...

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Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford

Born Jane Parker, a distant relative of Henry VIII, she became a lady-in-wait...

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Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Born Herefordshire.  Related via the Boleyn family to Queen Elizabeth I.  Mar...

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Lady Jane Grey

Married to Lord Guilford Dudley.  Her husband’s father persuaded the dying Ed...

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William, Lord Hastings

An important man in the court of Edward IV, rising to the position of Lord Ch...

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Show all 7

This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Tower scaffold - 1946

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 - 1972

Tower of London execution site - 1972

In the first 2 minutes of the 1972 CCF film "The Boy Who Turned Yellow" some ...

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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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