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Tussauds’ waxworks today; a chance to see the faces of people one would never get to meet in real life. The newly-installed head of a prominent person would always bring crowds out to admire it.
    The bridge at Southwark was not the only place in London where severed heads were to be seen. One of the points at which the City of Westminster ends, and London begins, was in Fleet Street. A gateway stood here from the fourteenth century onwards, and it was felt that displaying the heads, and other parts of executed traitors, here, might perhaps also be a good idea. The old gateway was demolished in the seventeenth century and Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, was commissioned to design a new one.
    The gateway at Temple Bar, which was completed in 1672, was a perfect, miniature gem of English baroque architecture. It was also, sited as it was at a main thoroughfare into the City of London, the perfect spot to put on show the heads of executed traitors. A few years after it was completed, the gateway at Temple Bar was first used for the display of decapitated heads and other, even more gruesome body parts.
    In 1683, a plan to assassinate Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, was foiled. The Rye House Plot, as it became known, resulted in the execution of several high-profile victims, including Lord Russell, who was beheaded in Lincolns Inn fields. Other conspirators were hanged, drawn and quartered. The heads, and also quarters of bodies, were stuck on long iron spikes and used to decorate the top of the Temple Bar. The heads of those found guilty of plotting against William III were also stuck on pikes and displayed here. In 1716, and again in 1722, the heads of traitors were fixed atop the Temple Bar gateway. The head fixed there in 1722 actually belonged to a man who had been hanged, rather than beheaded. Christopher Layer was a young barrister who lived in Chancery Lane. He became involved in the Atterbury Plot; an attempt to drive George I from the throne by inviting French troops to occupy London. It was as plain a case of treason as one could wish to see and Layer was hanged at Tyburn. After his death, his head was removed and brought to the Temple Bar for display.
    The last heads to be placed on show in this way were those of men who had taken part in the 1745 rebellion. We have read of the Scottish lords who were beheaded on Tower Hill. Many others were also executed for their part in this final effort to overthrow the House of Hanover. Among them were nine men who had taken arms against the Crown – a capital offence. Colonel Francis Townley was one of these and, together with eight other rebels, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. This was carried out on Kennington Common. The full rigours of this horrible sentence were not enacted upon the condemned men; they were allowed to hang for over half an hour, until they were all dead. A fire was then kindled and they were disembowelled, beheaded and quartered. Their bowels were thrown into the fire. A truly ghastly incident occurred during this revolting procedure. A soldier called Buckhorse took a piece of Townley’s flesh and ate it raw, as a demonstration of his loyalty to the king. Nor was this the only unexpected event of the day. The fiancée of one of the men put to death that day came to witness his execution. James Dawson’s intended bride cried out, as his bowels were thrown into the fire, ‘My dear, I follow thee – I follow thee! Lord God, receive our souls, I pray Thee!’ To everybody’s horror, she then fell dead on the spot.
    Colonel Townley’s head, and that of a man called Fletcher, were then treated with tar to preserve them and skewered on long iron rods, so that they could be clearly seen on top of Wren’s gateway. Horace Walpole, the well-known writer, recalled seeing a shopkeeper in Fleet Street, who was charging passers-by a halfpenny a time to look at the heads through a miniature telescope.
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