Tyburn Tree monument and monastery, Marble Arch, London

Tyburn is the end of the London Martyrs Way, a fitting if rather sombre conclusion to a pilgrimage through the city’s spiritual history that includes many victims of persecution

• Execution site of Catholic martyrs
• Monastery with a shrine chapel

The Tyburn Tree was a scaffold used to execute religious prisoners during and after the Reformation. It is and always has been on a busy road junction into London, a few steps away from Marble Arch at the western end of Oxford Street. At the time of research, plans were announced to build a memorial here, to complement a stone plaque in the pavement of a pedestrian island.

A Benedictine convent has been set up just 250m from the Tyburn site, with a shrine for the martyrs who were killed there. It is open to pilgrims and has relics from some of the saints, including St Oliver Plunkett and St John Roberts, as well as many of the other martyrs. A rota ensures this is a place of perpetual prayer, a rare and deeply moving place of devotion. Both sites are on the new Westminster Way of Two Cathedrals and Four Shrines pilgrim route.

Tyburn was London’s primary execution ground for centuries, used for common criminals as early as the 12th century. From the time of Henry VIII onwards, it became associated with Christian martyrdom. Around 400 Catholics were executed here between 1535 and 1681, of whom 105 are considered martyrs by the church and at least seven recognised as saints. The leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace were executed here, a protest movement that started in York in 1536. Among them were abbots of several monasteries, including Fountains, Jervaulx, and Bridlington.

The actual Tyburn Tree was built in 1571 as the city geared itself up for execution on a wider scale during the reign of Elizabeth I. The scaffold was a gruesome-looking tripod, three large wooden posts in the ground with beams along the top that could be used for several nooses at once. The tree’s first victim was John Story, a lawyer who had worked for Queen Mary, hanged on 1 June 1571. He was beatified by the Pope in the 19th century, but is not a saint. He played a part in the trial of Thomas Cranmer for heresy, which led to the archbishop’s execution.

Notable saints martyred here include St John Houghton, a prior (4 May 1535), St Edmund Campion, a priest (1 December 1581), St Robert Southwell, a priest (21 February 1595), and St John Southworth, a priest (28 June 1654). St Margaret Ward was executed here (30 August 1588) for helping a priest escape prison. Other martyrs include St Oliver Plunkett in 1681, whose shrine is at Downside Abbey. St John Roberts was martyred on 10 December 1610 for working as a Catholic priest. There is a finger relic at the London convent and also at Erdington Abbey church in Birmingham.

A good collection of texts about some of these martyrs is found at www.saintsandrelics.co.uk.

Directions

Pavement plaque: junction of Edgware Road (A5) and Bayswater Road (A402)

Marble Arch W1H 7EL

Tyburn Convent and Shrine, 8 Hyde Park Place, Bayswater Road W2 2LJ

www.tyburnconvent.org.uk

W3W: bond.strut.solo

GPS: 51.5133N 0.1604W

Marble Arch London Underground station 140m

The plaque in the pavement is in the pedestrian island at the junction of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road. For the convent and shrine keep walking west along Bayswater Road, away from Marble Arch Tube, and it is on your right after 250m. See the convent’s website for visiting details; tours of the Shrine of the Martyrs at Tyburn are daily at 3:30pm.