The Hanging Stanes

These two stone slabs which lie in the middle of the road about 100 m from Monday's blip, mark the place where the last two highwaymen to be publicly executed in Edinburgh were hanged in 1815. Thomas Kelly and Henry O'Neill were sentenced to be hung at the actual spot where, two months previously, they had badly beaten up and robbed David Loch of a loaf of bread, £5 and a tobacco pouch as he travelled into Edinburgh on the road from Dumfries. As they were taken to the gallows by cart they were accompanied by many police, magistrates and city dignitaries with the newspaper reporting that "we never on any occasion witnessed so great a crowd, who had walked out in a snowstorm the three miles from the High Street." Perhaps on very windy cold nights some local residents imagine they hear the sounds of that sad day.