The Old Gaol House in King’s Lynn presents crime and punishment down the centuries. You set off with personal audio guides - different ones for children and adults. In a 1930s-style charge room you can record your own fingerprints and be measured for height before pushing your face and hands through the pillory or feet through the stocks. In a line of cells you can try a bed or spot a teddy boy locked up for the night.
The rougher historical forms of punishment, sometimes for quite minor offences, are exhibited without the unpleasant addition of gore-covered figures, just a tableau of life-sized figures representing a man about to be hanged for robbing mail bags There is a whipping post, a ducking stool for testing witches, a gallows and a stake. These exhibits are best seen by climbing on to the circular platform round the stake and above what would have been burning wood and listening to the audio narrative.
