From Hell, Hull, Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us.

The Halifax Gibbet was a guillotine used for public execution. The earliest reference to this was in 1280 and use continued through to the 17th century, long after the practice had been discontinued in the rest of the country.
This was 600 years before the French guillotine was used. Dr Joseph Guillotine visited Halifax in his search for a means of execution during the French Revolution.
The gibbet was raised upon a stone platform and was reached by a flight of steps. The gibbet was a wooden structure with a heavy lead blade attached at the top. This was never sharpened, as the weight itself was enough to decapitate a person's head.

It originally stood at the junction of Gibbet Street and Cow Green, but it was later moved to this site in Gibbet Street where this reproduction gibbet stands today. The original blade can still be seen at the Bankfield Museum.

The gibbet law was swift and unforgiving and it's notoriety spread throughout the country.

The famous Beggar's Litany 'From Hell, Hull and Halifax, Good Lord deliver us' refers to the gibbet law:
"At Halifax, the Law so sharpe doth deale,
That whoso more than thirteen pence doth steale,
They have a jyn [engine] that wondrous quicke and well
Sends Thieves all headless unto Heav'n or Hell".