London Month of the Dead - Echoes of the Noose

ECHOES OF THE NOOSE London’s Lost Execution Sites - A Guided Tour with Anna Cusack Saturday the 25th October 2025 at 11 am & 2 pm Public executions were once a vivid and regular part of English life, serving as both punishment and public spectacle. Until the nineteenth century, the gallows were used not just for justice, but as a powerful tool of state messaging. Crowds gathered in their thousands, from hawkers to aristocrats, to witness these grim events. Execution sites were carefully chosen for maximum visibility and symbolic impact, from well known locations like Tyburn, Execution Dock, and Smithfield to the Tower of London itself. This walking tour explores some of London’s more forgotten execution sites, winding through the City and into today’s West End. We will stop at places where gallows once stood, many now unmarked, revealing stories buried beneath the modern city. Alongside permanent sites were one off executions, staged for political impact or public warning. As we walk, we will uncover how punishment shaped London’s past and left its shadow on the present. Tickets £12.50 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Abney Park Cemetery. Please click here to buy. ABOUT THE TOUR GUIDE Dr Anna Cusack is a historian of early modern London (c.1500–1800) with a focus on death, burial, crime, punishment, and the treatment of religious outsiders. She holds a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, where she is an Honorary Research Fellow, and lectures in History at Bishop Grosseteste University. She has taught at several universities, including Essex, Canterbury Christ Church, and Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education. Anna has worked on numerous research projects, including the AHRC-funded Power of Petitioning, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at St Mary’s Twickenham. A former museum professional and tour guide, she was also a consultant for the Museum of London Docklands’ Executions exhibition.

ECHOES OF THE NOOSE
London’s Lost Execution Sites - A Guided Tour with Anna Cusack
Saturday the 25th October 2025 at 11 am & 2 pm

Public executions were once a vivid and regular part of English life, serving as both punishment and public spectacle. Until the nineteenth century, the gallows were used not just for justice, but as a powerful tool of state messaging. Crowds gathered in their thousands, from hawkers to aristocrats, to witness these grim events. Execution sites were carefully chosen for maximum visibility and symbolic impact, from well known locations like Tyburn, Execution Dock, and Smithfield to the Tower of London itself.

This walking tour explores some of London’s more forgotten execution sites, winding through the City and into today’s West End. We will stop at places where gallows once stood, many now unmarked, revealing stories buried beneath the modern city. Alongside permanent sites were one off executions, staged for political impact or public warning. As we walk, we will uncover how punishment shaped London’s past and left its shadow on the present.

Tickets £12.50 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Abney Park Cemetery. Please click here to buy.

ABOUT THE TOUR GUIDE
Dr Anna Cusack is a historian of early modern London (c.1500–1800) with a focus on death, burial, crime, punishment, and the treatment of religious outsiders. She holds a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London, where she is an Honorary Research Fellow, and lectures in History at Bishop Grosseteste University. She has taught at several universities, including Essex, Canterbury Christ Church, and Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education. Anna has worked on numerous research projects, including the AHRC-funded Power of Petitioning, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at St Mary’s Twickenham. A former museum professional and tour guide, she was also a consultant for the Museum of London Docklands’ Executions exhibition.