Pavement, opposite Marks & Spencer store, Parliament Street (City Sightseeing Bus Stop 6)

About Pavement, opposite Marks & Spencer store, Parliament Street (City Sightseeing Bus Stop 6)

In Elizabethan York, Pavement was far more prominent than now, part of an area known as ‘Marketshire’, a central point in the city since the medieval era.

All Saints Church marked one end of the street, much wider than most others in the city, which was used as a marketplace, for issuing proclamations and carrying out punishments.

Thomas Percy, the 7th Earl of Northumberland, was executed on the site in 1572 for treason, having joined the northern Catholic uprising against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.

Beheaded on a scaffold, specially constructed for the occasion, Percy’s head was stuck on a spike and placed on Micklegate Bar as a warning to would-be traitors.

His headless body was placed in an unmarked grave at St Crux nearby, a church the family worshipped in.

A faithful servant later removed Percy’s head from the City Walls and buried it in the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.