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
Newgate Prison and many prisoners were dying from the close quarters, overcrowding, rampant disease, and bad sanitary conditions. Indeed, one year, 22 prisoners died from "gaol fever". The situation in Newgate was so dire that in 1419, city officials temporarily shut down the prison. Some Londoners bequeathed their estates to repair the prison. Following pressure from reformers who learned that the women's quarters were too small and did not contain their own latrines, obliging women to walk through the men's quarters to reach one, officials added a separate tower and chamber for female prisoners in 1406. Two decades later, the executors of