Welcome To Derby Ghost
Capital Of England --The Shire Hall
Shire Hall Shire Hall, St Mary's Gate (1659)
Shire Hall
Sentence 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.
If 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."
A deaf mute woman
was thus sentenced in the Shire Hall, St Mary's
Gate, and pressed to death in 1665.
Accused 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.
This 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.
Shire Hall
