Tyburn Tree was the popular name for the gallows that occupied a site close to what is now Marble Arch, in London. The first recorded hanging at Tyburn took place in 1196. A series of wooden gallows was used until 1571, when a permanent gallows was erected. The gallows was removed in 1759.
Tens of thousands of people were executed at Tyburn, mostly unknown common criminals. Some of the better-known people hanged on Tyburn Tree included Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne of England (1499), and Edmund Campion, a Roman Catholic martyr (1581). In 1661, after the Restoration, the body of Oliver Cromwell, the former leader of forces opposed to the king, was removed from its grave and hung at Tyburn. Notorious criminals executed at Tyburn included the highwayman Jack Sheppard and the gang leader Jonathan Wild.
