ravenstone

plural ravenstones · alternative raven-stone · alternative raven stone

1. historicalA place of execution; gallows

   [...] — The raven sits / On the raven-stone, And his black wing flits / O'er the milk-white bone; [...]

   1841, George Noël Gordon Baron Byron, The Works of Lord Byron

   2 more examples

   Three years later, in 1811, King Friedrich of Wurttemberg ordered the dismantling of permanent gallows and ravenstones and the ending of the practice of exposing malefactors' corpses.

   1996, Richard J. Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600-1987

   In 1811, for instance, King Friedrich of Württemberg ordered that the permanent gallows and ravenstones be dismantled and that the exposure of dead criminal bodies should be abandoned.

   2015, Richard Ward, A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse

2. UKdialectalA gravestone

1. A village and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England (OS grid ref SP8450).
2. A village in Ravenstone with Snibston parish, North West Leicestershire district, Leicestershire, England (OS grid ref SK4013).