Cursed, Burned and Hanged: Oxford's History of Execution and Murder

Oxford has a dark side that its dreaming spires do little to conceal. On this walking tour, you'll uncover centuries of executions, riots, and murders that shaped this seemingly genteel city. You'll also hear how religious persecution, medieval street violence, and courtroom curses left their mark on streets still walked today.

The tour starts at the Martyrs' Memorial on St Giles', close to where three Protestant bishops – Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer – were burned at the stake on the orders of Queen Mary I. From here, you'll follow the route to Broad Street, where a cobblestone cross marks the exact site of those executions, and on through the historic heart of the city. You'll pass the History of Science Museum, now on the site of the world's first public museum, where fresh corpses from the town gallows were once delivered for dissection.

Winding through Brasenose Lane and along Cornmarket Street, you'll hear about a fatal midnight brawl between tailors and drapers, the city's extraordinary medieval murder rate, and the 1355 St Scholastica's Day Riot, which lasted three days and left dozens dead. The tour ends at Oxford Castle, where a condemned servant named Anne Greene was hanged in 1650 – and somehow survived.

On this 75-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Stand on the cobblestone cross in Broad Street, marking where the Protestant martyrs were burned
• Hear how priests George Nichols and Richard Yaxley were hung, drawn, and quartered on Holywell Street in 1589
• Visit the church of St Michael in the Northgate, whose Saxon tower dates to around 1040, and see the original door of Cranmer's prison cell
• Discover how the Black Assizes of 1577 killed around 300 people after a foul-mouthed bookseller cursed the court
• Learn how a first-edition of The Wind in the Willows led to a brutal murder in 2016
• Hear the story of two soldiers executed by firing squad on Gloucester Green during the English Civil War

If you've ever wondered what lies beneath Oxford's distinguished academic surface, this tour has the answer.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Professor Manuel Eisner's Medieval Murder map