Macabre: Lamp made from gallows trapdoor

It’s got to be one of the most macabre pieces of furniture in Greater Manchester.

Gordon Teirney owns a table lamp made from the handle from the former gallows at Strangeways Prison.

The handle was used to operate the trapdoor during hangings carried out by executioners such as John Ellis, Harry Allen and Albert Pierrepoint until hanging was abolished in the 1960s.

Gordon, of Syke, Rochdale, acquired the handle from a friend who used to be a guard at Strangeways – and set about turning into the unusual souvenir.

He said:

Gordon’s late friend Albert Jones – dubbed ‘Jones the Lock’ since he would fix faulty locks around the prison – took the handle when the gallows were dismantled following the abolition of the death penalty in 1965.

Gordon said:

The last person to be hanged at Strangeways - and in Britain - was Gwynne Owen Evans, on August 13, 1964, for the murder of John Alan West in Seaton, Cumberland.

He was executed on the same day as his co-accused Peter Anthony Allen who was hanged at Liverpool.