Gallows
A place of execution by a rope around the neck of a criminal and suspended from a beam. These were often situated at the limits of towns or by roads. The dead body could be left for some considerable length of time in a metal cage called a gibbet as a deterrent - where the criminal was executed or somewhere else, e.g. the body of William Winter was hung at Winter's Gibbet/Steng Cross, Northumberland after he was hung at Newcastle. Burials sometimes took place at the gallows. Folk-medicine often involved pieces being taken from a gallows site.
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