WESTERN HILL AND DRYBURN
Executions initially took place at the Palace Green, then either at the Market place or Gallows Hill (behind Western Hill), or at Dryburn. The little chapel dedicated to St Leonards was sited adjacent and south of the Garden House public house, as shown in the Ordnance Survey of 1915. This was where the prisoners had their last rites.
The Dryburn tale of one of three priests, John Boste, who was executed here in 1594 said that a local stream would run dry is possibly a fable created to justify making Boste a saint. The area was called Dryburn before this, and there are no traces of a brook being near this place. The name could be a corruption of the more famous site in London of Tyburn [14].
St Cuthbert’s church occupies the site of the medieval St Leonards hospital, probably where St Godric’s sister died 19.