The Perkins family of

Ufton Nervet Ufton Nervet is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England centred west southwest of the large town of Reading and 7 miles east of Thatcham. Ufton Nervet has an elected civil parish council. Geography Ufton Nervet is a strip parish ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of Berkshire were a prominent

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

family in

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

England. From 1581 until 1769, a span covering seven generations of the Perkins family, they lived at

Ufton Court Ufton Court is a manor house in the civil parish of Ufton Nervet, in the county of Berkshire, England. It is the home to an educational charity, the Ufton Court Educational Trust, which operates historical and environmental education, as well ...

in the parish. The last member of the family was John Perkins (d. 1769); on his death, due to an entail made by his brother Francis, the estate passed to John Jones, of Llanarth, and then to William Congreve, of Aldermaston, a relation of the famous dramatist of that name. Arabella Fermor (1696-1737), who married Francis Perkins of Ufton Court (d. 1736), was the inspiration for Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. The

martyr, later sainted,

Swithun Wells Swithun Wells (c. 1536 – 10 December 1591) was an English Roman Catholic martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I. Wells was a country gentleman and one time schoolmaster whose family sheltered hunted priests. He himself often ...

was a relation of the Perkins family; when interrogated in 1587, Wells stated that he had lived for three months at Ufton Court, then in possession of his nephew Francis Perkins; as a

recusant Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

, Perkins was fined the statutory £20 a month for failing to attend the parish church, and had to rent Ufton to his cousin Thomas Perkins to pay the heavy fines. The house- which was raided by the authorities on at least two occasions- today retains signs of the family's secret adherence to their faith, including a chapel in the rafters, hiding places for priests, and an escape tunnel through woodland.A History of the Attwell Family 1200-1650, Bill Attwell, Lulu, 2014, p. 47

References

{{reflist English families People from Ufton Nervet English gentry families