Head to London in the 1700s, and you’d be paying a visit to the City of Gallows. For almost 1,000 years, Britain’s capital city was known as the execution centre of Europe: a place where the streets ran red with blood and death could be found on almost every street corner.
While the subject of public executions might sound a grim choice for the Museum of London Docklands’ new exhibition, curator Beverley Cook says capital punishment played a profound role in shaping London’s geography, culture and even place names.
