![Drowning Pond, Mugdock Country Park, Milngavie](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Drowning_Pond%2C_Mugdock_Country_Park%2C_Milngavie.jpg)
A drowning pit, drowning pool, murder-pool or murder hole (not to be confused with defensive
murder holes) was a well or pond specifically for executing women and girls (for males the
gibbet
A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, decapitation, executioner's block, Impalement, impalement stake, gallows, hanging gallows, or related Scaffold (execution site), scaffold). Gibbeting is the use of a gallows- ...
was used) under
Scottish feudal laws.
[ Rivers or ]lochan
''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch.
In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spellin ...
s were used if conveniently situated near to a moot hill
A moot hill or ''mons placiti'' (statute hill) is a hill or mound historically used as an assembly or meeting place, as a moot hall is a meeting or assembly building, also traditionally to decide local issues. In early medieval Britain, such h ...
, where the baronial court dempster would announce the death penalty. The term ''fossa'' was also used, as in the phrase ‘ furca and fossa’.[
]
Introduction
Drowning pits came into legal use after it was enacted at the parliament assembled in Forfar
Forfar ( sco, Farfar, gd, Baile Fharfair) is the county town of Angus, Scotland and the administrative centre for Angus Council, with a new multi-million pound office complex located on the outskirts of the town. As of 2021, the town has a p ...
in 1057 by King Malcolm Canmore
Malcolm III ( mga, Máel Coluim mac Donnchada, label=Medieval Gaelic; gd, Maol Chaluim mac Dhonnchaidh; died 13 November 1093) was King of Scotland from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" ("ceann mòr", Gaelic, literally "big head" ...
that every baron should sink a well or pit, for the drowning of females. The place name element 'murder hole' sometime relates to these formal drowning sites. Bones have been found close to some of these sites, suggesting that the corpses were buried close by and not in hallow
To hallow is "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate". The adjective form ''hallowed'', as used in ''The Lord's Prayer'', means holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered. The noun form ''hallow'', as used in ''Hallowtide'', ...
ed ground.[RCAHMS Execution sites](_blank)
Retrieved: 2012-07-01
Some drowning pits had ladders down which the condemned person had to climb; the ladder was then withdrawn. On other sites hurdles were used to hold the person below the water.[ Many ]moot hill
A moot hill or ''mons placiti'' (statute hill) is a hill or mound historically used as an assembly or meeting place, as a moot hall is a meeting or assembly building, also traditionally to decide local issues. In early medieval Britain, such h ...
sites are or were surrounded by water or were situated at the edge of a body of water, such as Mugdock, Mound Wood near Auchentiber
The hamlet of Auchentiber (Scottish Gaelic, ''Achadh an Tiobair'') is in North Ayrshire, Parish of Kilwinning, Scotland. Auchentiber is northeast of Kilwinning on the Lochlibo Road, from the hamlet of Burnhouse and from the village of Barrmil ...
and the Court Hill at the Hill of Beith, Hutt Knowe at Bonshaw, etc.
It is not clear why men were more likely to be hanged and women drowned in a fen, river, pit, or murder hole. However, it may relate to ideas of decency or because it was a less violent death.[
]
Feudal jurisdiction
The binomial expression
In linguistics and stylistics, an irreversible binomial, frozen binomial, binomial freeze, binomial expression, binomial pair, or nonreversible word pair is a pair or group of words used together in fixed order as an idiomatic expression or co ...
''pit and gallows'' or – reversing the terms – '' furca and fossa'' refers to the high justice
High, middle and low justices are notions dating from Western feudalism to indicate descending degrees of judicial power to administer justice by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents.
Low just ...
rights of a feudal baron, etc., including the capital penalty. The right is described in full as ''pit and gallows, sake and soke, toll, team, and infangthief
Infangthief and outfangthief were privileges granted to feudal lords (and various corporate bodies such as abbeys and cities) under Anglo-Saxon law by the kings of England. They permitted their bearers to execute summary justice (including capital ...
''.
With the introduction to Scotland of the feudal system in the 12th-century, pre-feudal, or Celtic tenures, were transformed into holding from the Crown and a number of these were held directly or in chief of the Crown and were held in , in free barony, with the aforementioned high justice (with pit and gallows). It is said that King Malcolm Canmore legislated in 1057 that every barony was to have a tree for hanging convicted men and a pit of water for the execution of convicted women.[Love, Dane (2009). Page 74]
Although drowning was generally reserved for females, being the least brutal form of death penalty, at times a male was executed in this way as a matter of favour, for instance in 1526 a man convicted of theft and sacrilege was ordered to be drowned "by the queen's special grace" and in 1611 a man was drowned at Edinburgh for stealing a lamb.
The hereditary right of high justice survived until 1747 when it was removed from the barons and from the holders of Regalities and sheriffdoms, by the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746
The Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 (20 Geo. II c. 43) was an Act of Parliament passed in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745 abolishing judicial rights held by Scots heritors. These were a significant source of power, especia ...
, however the use of the death penalty by barons had largely fallen into abeyance well before it was abolished.[ Its last use in Scotland may have been in 1685, the year of the drowning of the Wigton martyrs.][
]
Examples of murder holes
These pits were often close to the residence of the baron or clan chief, and many gallows sites were close to water. A pit or ditch therefore generally did not have to be constructed, making actual drowning pits rare features within the physical landscape. It is not clear what the ratio of male-to-female deaths was in feudal times. Many gallows sites are also associated with the discovery of bones; however records do not clearly state the sex.
Gallows Hill, in the parish of Cruden, was where criminals were executed and where human skeletons have been found. A deep pool in the Water of Cruden opposite is where 'others' were drowned.
There was a Drowning Pool, at Balliemore, Strathspey, South-east of Inverness, where it is said that witches and other women criminals used to be put to death.
Between Mugdock Castle
Mugdock Castle was the stronghold of the Clan Graham from the middle of the 13th century. Its ruins are located in Mugdock Country Park, just west of the village of Mugdock in the parish of Strathblane. The castle is within the registration count ...
and Craigend is a round knoll, called the moot hill
A moot hill or ''mons placiti'' (statute hill) is a hill or mound historically used as an assembly or meeting place, as a moot hall is a meeting or assembly building, also traditionally to decide local issues. In early medieval Britain, such h ...
(place of judgement). Guilty women were drowned in the little sheet of water which lay at the foot of the gibbet where the men were hanged.
In Straiton
Straiton is a village on the River Girvan in South Ayrshire in Scotland, mainly built in the 18th century, but with some recent housing.
It was the main location for the film '' The Match,'' where two rival pubs played against each other in a ...
parish near Craigenrae is a site known as the murder hole, represented by a marshy depression. In the novel ''The Grey Man'' written by S. R. Crockett
Samuel Rutherford Crockett (24 September 1859 – 16 April 1914), who published under the name "S. R. Crockett", was a Scottish novelist.
Life and work
He was born at Little Duchrae, Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire, Galloway on 24 September 18 ...
this murder hole is used, however its site is placed elsewhere.
On the Water of Minnoch is a deep pool known as the Murder Hole in which a family from Rowantree dumped their victims; they were caught, confessed and were the last to be hanged on the dule tree.[Love (2003), Page 208]
The author Joseph Train Joseph Train (6 November 1779 – 7 December 1852) was a Scottish excise officer, antiquarian, writer and poet. He corresponded with Sir Walter Scott, and his local knowledge provided Scott with ideas for his novels.
Life
Train was born in 1779 at ...
records, however, that at the last ''shire-mote'' ever held in Carrick by the Earl of Cassillis
Marquess of Ailsa, of the Isle of Ailsa in the County of Ayr, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 September 1831 for Archibald Kennedy, 12th Earl of Cassilis. The title Earl of Cassilis (pronounced "Cassels") ...
, the MacKillups of Craingenreach were hanged on the dule tree of Cassillis circa 1746, having murdered a neighbour and thrown his remains into "the common murder hole of the Bailiery at Craigenreach".[Train, pp. 40-46]
Drowning pits elsewhere in Britain
The owner of Baynard's Castle
Baynard's Castle refers to buildings on two neighbouring sites in the City of London, between where Blackfriars station and St Paul's Cathedral now stand. The first was a Norman fortification constructed by Ralph Baynard ( 1086), 1st feudal ...
, London, in the reign of John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
, had powers of trying criminals, and his descendants long afterwards claimed the privileges, the most valued of which was the right of drowning in the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
traitors taken within their jurisdiction. Drowning was the punishment ordained by Richard the Lionheart
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...
for any soldier of his army who killed a fellow crusader during the passage to the Holy Land
The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...
.[
]
See also
References
;Notes
;Sources
# Love, Dane (2003). ''Ayrshire : Discovering a County.'' Ayr : Fort Publishing. .
# Love, Dane (2009). ''Legendary Ayrshire. Custom : Folklore : Tradition''. Auchinleck : Carn Publishing. {{ISBN, 978-0-9518128-6-0
# Train, Joseph (1844). ''The Dule Tree of Cassillis.'' ''The Ayrshire Wreath MDCCCXLIV.'' Kilmarnock : R. Crawford & Son.
External links
Video on Feudal Scotland Drowning Pits, Gallows Hills and Moot Hills
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
*
Execution equipment