Gallows a broken neck rather than through strangulation, especially if extra weights were fixed to their ankles. During the era of public execution in London, England, a prominent gallows stood at Tyburn, on what is now Marble Arch. Later executions occurred outside Newgate Prison, where the Old Bailey now stands. Gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame, typically wooden, from which objects can be hung or “weighed.” Gallows were thus widely used for public weighing scales for large objects such as sacks of grain or minerals, usually positioned in markets or toll gates. The term was also used for a
Execution Dock those convicted of acts of piracy, hanging was done with a shortened rope. This meant a slow death from strangulation on the scaffold as the drop was insufficient to break the prisoner's neck. It was called the "Marshal's dance" because their limbs would often be seen to 'dance' from slow asphyxiation. Unlike hangings on land, such as at Tyburn, the bodies of pirates at Execution Dock were not immediately cut down following death. Customarily, these corpses were left hanging until at least three tides had washed over their heads. This practice stopped at the end of the 18th century. In