The Hanging Stanes

One a residential road South of Morningside are two stones which at first glance look like man hole covers but the form a part of Edinburgh's history.

These are the foundations stones of a pair of gibbets from which were conducted one of the last public hangings in Edinburgh.

Back in November 1814 two Irish immigrants Thomas Kelly and Henry O’Neil robbed one David Loch, a carter, in broad daylight at the point where the stones stand.  Given the ill-feeling of those days to Irish immigrants the jury found no trouble in finding them guilty without even the need to retire to consider their verdict.

The gallows were erected on the spot where the robbery took place, and within a month, the two men were marched through the street wrapped in chains, before being publicly hanged. In a barbaric move, the bodies were left hanging on the gallows as a ‘reminder’ to others to obey the law.