The junction at the top of City Road where it meets Richmond Road, Crwys Road, Albany Road and Mackintosh Place is a busy place today. Thousands of cars and buses pass through each day and many pedestrians make their way across the bustling crossroads. As they queue to use the cash machines, I wonder how many people notice a plaque on the wall of the bank which commemorates the deaths, in 1679, of two priests, John Lloyd and Philip Evans.

Long ago the junction was known as Gallows Field and it was to this place that prisoners who had been condemned to death were brought to be hanged. The gibbet was situated in a field called “The Cut-throats”. This, the Gallows field, was divided into plots which were called Cae budr (the defiled field), Plwcca halog (the unhallowed plot) and Pwll halog (the unhallowed pool), commemorating the grim associations of the site.

They were brought from the County Gaol in High Street, where the Central Market is now situated. They approached the place of execution along Plwcca Lane, now City Road. The top portion of Richmond Road divides the Gallows Field in two today.