It could be the entrance to a cellar with hidden riches or unusual items that is attracting the attention of these interested onlookers. But this is a site with a more gory past.

It is the trap door – the drop – in the execution block of the former Duke Street Prison in Glasgow’s East End.

This was the scene on June 5, 1959 when the jail was being demolished. One third of the building had already been pulled down, with many cells blocks gone. But the high walls of the jail remained, as did the main block with its tiered floors.

And the small isolated Execution Block was still standing. Normally it was used as a workshop and adapted for the executions, which magistrates witnessed through a glass partition.

A screen was put up to conceal a prisoner as he made his steps from his cell to the block. In all, 17 people spent their last hours in that cell. But the last death had been in 1928.

The jail site is now occupied by the Ladywell flats, which we featured on January 11.

Glasgow Times:

The show was in danger of not going on for these three youngsters in 1997.

Danielle Todd, Emma Nicolson and Siobhan Macfarlane were members of the Molyneaux School of Dance in Clydebank and the majorettes were appealing for the return of 15 batons, 72 dance tapes, a keyboard and a ‘ghetto blaster’ that they needed for their shows.

The items had been stolen from the car of the school’s principal Joyce Molyneeaux.