Marble Arch, the Tyburn Tree and Oxford Street in London are all very close to each other. That wasn’t always the case though. Let’s get detailed here..
Marble Arch
The arch was built in 1828 next to…. Buckingham Palace!! Yes, it’s quite a distance. It was moved when the Palace was extended in 1851. The arch, together with The Wellington Arch, which is not that far away, were both built to commemorate the victory of Britain over Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars. The Wellington Arch, as you probably can guess, shows the Duke of Wellington, a.k.a. the Iron Duke. He is “guarded” by four soldiers- English, Irish, Welsh and a Scottish one. Speaking of the Duke, do you remember where the Wellington Step was and what it is? Check it out here.
Oxford Street
This street already “has its place” in our video library where the main subject then was the Christmas decoration.
There were gallows on the street which we will mention in just a few seconds. They were removed from Oxford Street in 1783 and by the end of the century the main part of the street was built.
Fun fact: Oxford Street, together with Bond Street and Regent Street (which are all next to each other) all form the Green set of properties on the Monopoly Board.
Tyburn Tree
And finally – the Tyburn Tree. Even though it is called “a tree”, there was no tree there in the past. The “Tree” was a novel form of gallows, consisting of a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs.
That way several felons could thus be hanged at once and so the gallows were used for mass executions and for about 600 years this place has been seeing loads of executions. The ones sentenced to death had to walk (or even dragged by a horse, naked) all the way from London, passing through all of Oxford Street. “How come from London since they were in London” you may ask. Well, in those days, London was not that big. Nowadays this location is marked with some sort of a plaque.
In the 18th century the area was also known as ‘God’s Tribunal’.
Watch this video ⬇️⬇️⬇️
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