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Armley jail has always been a grim institution, built in the middle of the Victorian era to resemble a medieval fortress with its twin towers either side of an arched gateway.

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And until 1961 its grim exterior was matched by the activities inside the building because, until that year, Armley was a place of execution where condemned prisoners were hanged.

For just short of a hundred years, the lives of those sentenced to death were ended within its confines – indeed one Armley hangman was acknowledged as the pioneer of the "long drop" method of execution, said to be more humane since death came instantly from a broken neck rather from painful strangulation.

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This nugget of Armley's history, along with many others, is revealed by Steve Fielding in his new book Hanged at Leeds.

Steve, a former member of the punk rock band The Stiffs, now specialises in writing about true crime, and this is his eighteenth book on the subject.

He said: "I became interested about twenty years ago after reading a biography written by hangman Albert Pierrepoint. I started to research a few things that were missing from his book, and eventually began writing them myself.

"In the past the research was difficult but it has become easier as changes in the law have meant more previously secret information has been made available to members of the public

"They are a bit of a grim read in places but my readers tend to be interested in local history as well as crime. I get lots of letters from people saying how much they enjoy them.

Steve lives in Bolton, Lancashire, but visited Leeds many times for his research on Armley jail.

The prison was completed in 1847 and on its four wings it housed both men and women, some of whom were actually children since both sexes were held there from the age of 12 years. A report in 1869 said that
the female prisoners were more unruly than the men.

Prisoners who were executed there were unlucky in having to face one of the longest walks to their death of any prison in the country, it being 40 yards from condemned cell to noose. One man struggled so much that it took fifteen minutes to get him from the cell to the noose which
awaited him.

This situation was not changed until the 1950s, when the gallows and condemned cell were put next to each other.

Armley was the scene of one public execution in 1864 when, amazingly, a crowd estimated at the time to be around 10,000 turned up to try to watch the spectacle.

The condemned men were Joseph Myers, a 44-year-old man who had stabbed his wife to death and then tried to slit his own throat, and James Sargisson, 20, who had robbed and killed another man.

Newspaper reports of the time say that the crowd gathered in fields in front of the jail, along roofs, walls and lamp posts and even lined Burley Road, near Woodhouse Moor.

"Amongst the crowd were a large number of women, many of them with children in their arms and their anxiety, if possible, exceeded that of the men to obtain a good view," wrote a journalist at the time.
Some 91 prisoners were hanged at Armley jail. One man had to be hanged twice after the rope snapped on the first attempt, leaving him dazed but uninjured.

The prisoner then sat silently on a chair for ten minutes while a new rope was once again made ready.

One of the hangmen who served at the jail was Thomas Pierrepoint, uncle of the famous hangman Albert Pierrepoint.

Thomas Pierrepoint carried out 32 executions at Armley, including three double executions.

The last man to die at the prison was Zsiga Pankotai, a Hungarian miner who killed Pools winner and Leeds market trader Eli Myers at his home in Chelwood Avenue.

Mr Myers had won £1,275 and the win was reported in the paper but he died in the struggle after interrupting the robbery and Pankotai was sentenced to death.

The hangman noted that he was five feet six inches tall, weighed ten stones and eight pounds and required a long drop of seven feet and six inches.

Following the suspension of the death penalty in 1965 and its eventual abolition in 1969, the block housing the gallows and condemned cell was turned into an administrative centre, and also houses the prison dog unit.

Steve said: "What I've learned from my research is that most murders and most murderers are very mundane. The typical killer who was hanged was a working class lad in his mid-20s who got drunk and killed his wife. Only the weapon changed, depending on the era.

"It might have been a knife when it was the thing to carry knives, a gun at times when they were more readily available. You can see patterns and social trends."