John Nevison Hill, near Rochester, Kent. Nevison escaped, using a ferry to cross the Thames and galloped via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon to York some from the scene of the crime. He arrived at sunset and ensured he met the city's Lord Mayor, entering into a wager on a bowls match. When he was arrested and tried for the Gad's Hill robbery, he produced the Lord Mayor to support his alibi and was found not guilty. Nevison was tried and convicted for the theft of a horse and highway robbery at York assizes in 1677. He was imprisoned in York Castle but,
Dick Turpin Hadfield. An account in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for 7 April 1739 notes Turpin's brashness: "Turpin behaved in an undaunted manner; as he mounted the ladder, feeling his right leg tremble, he spoke a few words to the topsman, then threw himself off, and expir'd in five minutes." The short drop method of hanging meant that those executed were killed by slow strangulation, and so Turpin was left hanging until late afternoon, before being cut down and taken to a tavern in Castlegate. The next morning, Turpin's body was buried in the graveyard of St George's Church, Fishergate, opposite what is