Heavitree is a district of the city of Exeter in Devon, England. It lies to the east of the city centre, and was formerly the first significant village outside the city on the road to London. It was the birthplace of Thomas Bodley, and Richard Hooker, and until 1818 was a site for executions.
The name appears in Domesday Book as Hevetrowa or Hevetrove, and in a document of c.1130 as Hefatriwe. Its derivation is uncertain, but because of the known execution site at Livery Dole, it is thought most likely to derive from heafod–treow (old English for "head tree"), which refers to a tree on which the heads of criminals were placed, though an alternative explanation put forward by W. G. Hoskins is that it was a meeting place for the hundred court.
The last executions for witchcraft in England took place at Heavitree in 1682, when the "Bideford Witches" Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, and Susanna Edwards were executed. (Local folklore used to associate the name with the aftermath of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, when Judge Jeffreys supposedly ran out of gibbets.) The last execution to take place here was in 1818, when Samuel Holmyard was hanged at the Magdalen Drop for passing a forged one pound note.
I walked out in the city night,
A burning in my eyes, like it was broad daylight.
And it was hot, down there in the crowd.
The stars went out behind a thunder cloud.
Chatter in the air, like a telegraph line.
Big drops hissing on the neon sign.
Thumping in my heart, and it's hurting me to see.
Smokestack blowing, now they're pouring
heavy water on me.
She was a southern girl. We stared man to man.
I move like a stranger in this strange land.
She was a round hole, I was a square peg.
I watched the little black specks running down her leg.
Didn't seem to mind that dirty rain coming down ---
shirt hanging open. She was wet and brown.
Thumping in my heart, and it's hurting me to see.
Smokestack blowing, now they're pouring
heavy water on me.
What goes up has to fall back down.
It's no night to be out dancing in a party town
when it runs hot and it runs so wide ---
running in the street like a thin black tide.
Chatter in the air, like a telegraph line.
Big drops hissing on the neon sign.
Thumping in my heart, and it's hurting me to see.
Smokestack blowing, now they're pouring