Shire Hall
Shire Hall, St Mary's Gate (1659)
entence of Penance -"That you be taken back to the prison whence you came to a low dungeon, into which no light can enter; that you be laid on your back on the bare floor with a cloth around your loins but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear and greater; that you have no sustenance except on the first day a morsel of coarse bread and on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest the prison door and on the third another morsel of coarse bread as before.
f after three days you
are still alive the weight will be taken
from your body and a large sharp
stone placed beneath your back and
the weight replaced."
deaf mute woman was thus
sentenced in the Shire Hall, St Mary's
Gate, and pressed to death in 1665.
ccused persons who remained in the
witness box in court were given three
chances to plead guilty or not guilty.
After the third time of
asking, followed by
time for reconsideration,
'judgement of
penance' was passed -
the above blood
curdling sentence.
his was the last
time in England that
this horrible execution
was carried out and
her ghost is said to still
wander in the cells
which are preserved
underneath Derby's Shire Hall,
possibly the most ominous building
remaining in Derby to this day. It was
built in 1659 and was the scene of all
the famous murder trials in
Derbyshire. The Pentrich Martyrs
were sentenced to be hanged, drawn
and quartered there in 1817. That was
the last time such a sentence was
passed in England.
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The information on this page is supplied courtesy of Wayne Anthony (author) and Richard Felix (local historian).
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