The words “the entrance of a high road” fix definitely the spot indicated, approximately, by Norden’s map. Even without the map, then unknown to me, I felt abundantly justified in writing that the words applied to a road leading out of the road bounding Hyde Park: “This can be no other than the road now known as Edgeware Road: along the whole length of the park there is no other road to which the words could apply.”[105]
In 1626 we have also the mention of “the three wooden stilts” of Tyburn, in Shirley’s “The Wedding,” published in 1629.
In 1649, in an account of the hanging of a batch of twenty-four persons, it is said that eight were hanged “unto each Triangle.”[106]
In 1660 the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were “hanged at the several angles of the Triple-tree.”[107]
1680. Seller’s map of Middlesex shows the gallows, its form not recognisable, near the angle formed by the junction of the roads.
1697. Defoe, in his Essay upon Projects, refers to Watling Street: “The same High Way or Street called Watling Street … went on West to that spot where Tyburn now stands, and there turn’d North-West … to St. Alban’s.”[108]
1712. Beginning with this date the accounts published by Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate, of the behaviour of condemned criminals, show the prison of Newgate at the top, on one side, and on the other the gallows of Tyburn. The illustration is taken from the broadsheet of September 19, 1712.
1725. In this year a large map of the newly constituted parish of St. George, Hanover Square, was drawn by John Mackay. We have in it the first exact location of the gallows, shown as a triangular structure. In detailed notes on the map, describing the first “beating the bounds” of the parish on Ascension Day, 1725, it is stated that the parish boundary to the west was marked “on the S.E. Leg of Tyburn,” fully proving the permanence of the structure. The map was reproduced on a small scale in the Builder of July 6, 1901, and was described by Mr. Herbert Sieveking in the Daily Graphic of March 11, 1908.
1746 to 1757. In 1746 was published Rocque’s beautiful map of London in twenty-four sheets; this was followed by his maps of Middlesex in 1754 and 1757. In all the gallows is shown in the open space formed by the junction of the roads near the Marble Arch.
1747. In the last plate of Hogarth’s series of “Industry and Idleness,” is shown an execution at Tyburn. The gallows, a triangular structure, is in the same position (approximately) as in Rocque’s maps.