Hanging Stanes Gallows Bases, Braid Road Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Council Area, Scotland, UK
Scheduled Monument Statement of Significance
© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument is of national importance for its historical associations and social significance. Although placename evidence for gallows is widespread, surviving elements of actual apparatus, in situ, are rare. This monument is of importance as indicating the perceived value of capital punishment in the early nineteenth century, for the decision to carry out the sentence on the site of the crime indicates a deterrent as much as, or more than, a punitive intention.
Scheduled Monument Description
© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument consists of the stone bases into which were set gallows used in 1815 for the last public executions, for highway robbery, in Scotland.
The stone bases, each 1m square, are set beside each other in the N- bound carriageway of Braid Road, outside 66 Braid Road. Until recently, one of the bases was covered by road material. Each base has a central socket, into which the wooden upright of the gallows was set. These sockets are now each filled with two stone paving setts, and each base is surrounded by an ornamental border of a single line of red granite setts.
The distance from the W kerb of the road to the W edge of the stones themselves is 2.85m, and the stones are set 0.6m apart, aligned N-S. These stones supported the gallows erected for the specific purpose of the hanging, on 25 January 1815, of Thomas Kelly and Henry O'Neill, the last persons to be publicly executed in Scotland for highway robbery.
The area to be scheduled consists of a rectangular area 3.3m E-W by 4.9m N-S, to include the bases and their surrounding borders and a small area around them, as shown in red on the accompanying plan. Rights of vehicular passage over the monument are not to be affected by this scheduling.
Scheduled Monument References
© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.
Reference:
Smith, C. J. (1979) Historic South Edinburgh, Vol. 2.