Halifax Gibbet
Information
The name Gibbet Street in Halifax holds a clue to a most gruesome location, for Gibbet Street is the home of the infamous Halifax Gibbet, a place of gory execution where many a poor soul met with their end.
A gibbet is traditionally a gallows, a place for criminals to be hung till dead, but the people of Halifax favoured a more decisive and indeed divisive method. For the Halifax Gibbet was an early form of guillotine: a device for separating a person’s head from their body.
Since the late 13th century there are terrible tales of criminals losing their heads at Halifax, and records show that a total of 80 heads rolled on Gibbet Street, the last in 1650. Any man who stole a piece of cloth worth more than 13 pence was liable to end up on the block. Most strange is the punishment that awaited those who stole an animal; the creature itself would be tied to the mechanism and, as it pulled on the rope, would activate the blade. Steal a lamb in Halifax, and you were for the chop.
The only hope of escape from the Gibbet was to run - legend tells that any man of agility who escaped the blade and made it across the river would be pardoned. John Lacey was the only man to ever escape, in 1617. Sadly, John returned to Halifax in 1623, whereupon he was arrested again and this time did not escape the blade. The Running Man public house in Halifax celebrates his temporary reprieve.
A replica of the Gibbet stands in Gibbet Street now, and an original blade is to be found at the Calderdale Industrial Museum in the nearby Piece Hall. The blade is almost a foot in length and weighs nearly six pounds.
Location
The Halifax Gibbet can be seen on Gibbet Street in Halifax