For Christmas my sister bought me a book titled “111 Places in Birmingham that you shouldn’t miss”. I’ve lived in and around this city all my life, but there are many things in this book that I’ve never seen before, and others that I’ve admired but known nothing about, etc. Today my sister and I did a mini tour of a few of these.
This plaque is in a on a dingy wall of the busy ring road around the town centre. It is apparently the site of the final moments of a local gangster Philip ‘Drake’ Matsell, who fell in with a disreputable gang and ended up shooting a ‘peace officer’. According to the book this is the only public hanging that took place in the city as locals to be hanged were actually sent to Gallows Hill in Warwick.
great story , enjoy your walks to find the hidden bits of Brum . BTW when I was freelancing , self employed , I worked on Gallows Hill, for a company who had temporary offices there (they moved up the road)
