Tower Of London Wall

[bainbrig]

A few years back, a TV programme on the Tower of London showed a dreadful place of confinement/torture.

The victim was forced into a hole in a very thick stone wall, which was sealed with a stone slab.

He couldn’t move until his tormenters removed the slab and dragged him out.

Any information on this would be appreciated.

BB

[jno]

it wasn't Little Ease, was it?

https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/2102216/little-ease-torture-cell-beneath-the-white-tower

[bainbrig]

Thanks jno, and if that wasn’t bad enough, this one was worse.

The prisoner was forced to lie on the floor, and was shoved in sideways. Maybe my fevered mind invented it, but I’m sure it was real!

[jourdain2]

It's called 'immuration' and was, apparently, quite common. There are tales of husbands immuring wives. :( There were also the 'oubliettes', which may have been even worse. Bottle-shaped dungeons into which someone was chucked and forgotten about. The person presumably landed, hurt, amongst skeletons and the near-dead. Quite nasty, but that was life - 'nasty, brutish and short'.

[bainbrig]

Thanks jourdain, that gives me a clue as to what to search for.

(I know a few people who are nasty, brutish, and short, but that's another posting).

BB

[Peter Pedant]

well these are all different things
I think it was probably Little Ease ( guy Fawkes got it for a week or two along with Question Extra-ordinary (the rack))

an oubliette is usually a bottle shaped room you can move around in with a trapdoor in the ceiling - where you are put and forgoooooootten !

immuring is walling up
here is a lasting theme from Dante
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugolino_della_Gherardescaht

Ugolino n his leedol kiddies are walled up....( er immured)
and he eats them ....

and finally the awful Mrs Shand Kydd - Di's mother got the droopies towards the end of her own life and immured herself in cell in Scotland comtemplating if she had been a bad mother .... well that shouldnt have taken her long but it did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Shand_Kydd#Divorce_and_remarriage

[bainbrig]

Thanks for the clarifications PP.

I’m going to have to wait for the TV programme to be repeated, I suppose.

In it, a prisoner was forced to lie on the floor; a large stone was removed from the wall at ground level. He was made to slide in, then the stone was replaced.

Some days later, he was released and “the questions” were again put to him.

As a claustrophobe, I can think of few worse tortures.