Uxenden Hall or Uxendon Hall was an English

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

near Harrow-on-the-Hill. In the sixteenth century it was inhabited by the Bellamy family.

History

The hall's name was first recorded in 1257 as ''Woxindon'', meaning "Wixan's Hill", and is thus related to

Uxbridge Uxbridge () is a suburban town in west London and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. Situated west-northwest of Charing Cross, it is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Uxbrid ...

. The Wixan were a 7th-century

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

tribe from

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

who also began to settle in what became

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

. The Bellamy family was known for its hospitality to fellow recusants and missionaries, and so the house was kept under surveillance. In 1586,

Jerome Bellamy Jerome Bellamy (died 1586), of Uxenden Hall, near London, England, was a member of an old Roman Catholic recusant family noted for its hospitality to missionaries and fellow recusants. Jerome Bellamy was a younger son of William and Katherine Bel ...

sheltered the rebel

Anthony Babington Anthony Babington (24 October 156120 September 1586) was an English gentleman convicted of plotting the assassination of Elizabeth I of England and conspiring with the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, for which he was hanged, drawn and quartere ...

here, following the plot to assassinate Queen

Elizabeth I of England Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is ...

. Babington was captured at Uxenden, and Jerome Bellamy was hung, drawn, and quartered at

Tyburn Tyburn was a manor (estate) in the county of Middlesex, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. The parish, probably therefore also the manor, was bounded by Roman roads to the west (modern Edgware Road) and south (modern Ox ...

on 21 September 1586. In 1592, Jerome's older brother Richard was the owner of Uxenden. His daughter Anne was arrested, apparently for failure to attend church services, and confined to the

Gatehouse Prison Gatehouse Prison was a prison in Westminster, built in 1370 as the gatehouse of Westminster Abbey. It was first used as a prison by the Abbot, a powerful churchman who held considerable power over the precincts and sanctuary. It was one of the pri ...

. At some point, she was interrogated and raped by Richard Topcliffe, the Queen's chief priest-hunter and torturer, and revealed the movements of Robert Southwell and the location of the Priest hole at Uxenden. Southwell was subsequently arrested at Uxenden.Brown, Nancy P. ''Southwell, Robert

t Robert Southwell T, or t, is the twentieth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabe ...

(1561–1595), writer, Jesuit, and martyr'' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The house remained in the Bellamy family until the early 17th century when it came into the possession of Richard Page of Wembley, one of the governors of

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

. The hall stood near where

Preston Road tube station Preston Road is a London Underground station on the Metropolitan line in the London Borough of Brent. It lies between Northwick Park and Wembley Park stations and is in Travelcard Zone 4. It serves the local area of Preston in Wembley and pa ...

now stands, and is preserved in the street names "Uxendon Crescent" and "Uxendon Hill".

References

{{coord, 51.5710, -0.3398, display=title, region:GB_scale:5000 Country houses in London Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Brent History of Middlesex