Drowning pit

[1] Rivers or lochans were used if conveniently situated near to a moot hill, where the baronial court dempster would announce the death penalty.

[4] The binomial expression pit and gallows or – reversing the terms – furca and fossa refers to the high justice rights of a feudal baron, including capital punishment.

[4] 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.

[9] 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.

[1] The owner of Baynard's Castle, London, in the reign of John, 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 traitors taken within their jurisdiction.

Drowning was the punishment ordained by Richard the Lionheart for any soldier of his army who killed a fellow crusader during the passage to the Holy Land.