A shrine to Roman Catholic martyrs
Near the roaring junction of Edgware Road and Bayswater Road is a place of tranquillity and meditation. It is no coincidence that the convent is here: the village of Tyburn, where Marble Arch now stands, was a site for executions from the Middle Ages until 1783. From 1571 the hangings took place on »Tyburn Tree«, a gallows in the form of a horizontal triangle with three supports, large enough for the execution of more than 20 people at the same time. An estimated 50,000 died here, surrounded by jeering crowds who expected them to be defiant and spirited in the face of death.
Not only criminals were hanged. Tyburn Convent commemorates 350 Roman Catholic martyrs. The first of them were sent to Tyburn for refusing to recognise Henry VIII as head of the Anglican church. After a brief pause under Henry’s Catholic daughter Mary I (reigned 1553–58), persecution continued under Elizabeth I. Loyalty to Rome was seen as disobedience to the monarch and thus as treachery. The Catholics who died at Tyburn in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors include two who were canonised: the Jesuit St Edmund Campion († 1581) and St Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh († 1681, the last who died for his faith at Tyburn).
Info
Address 8–12 Hyde Park Place, W2 2LJ | Public Transport Marble Arch (Central Line) | Hours Mon–Sun 6.30am–8.30pm, tours of the shrine daily 10.30am, 3.30pm, 5.30pm| Tip It is worth taking a closer look at Marble Arch, even though many of the planned sculptures were left off to save costs. Originally the ceremonial entrance to Buckingham Palace, it was moved to its present site in 1851.
Martyrs’ coats of arms line the walls of the plain chapel of Tyburn Convent, where nuns have lived according to the rule of St Benedict since 1901. They sing Mass seven times daily and keep silent vigil round the clock in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, separated by a metal grille from the faithful who come in from the street to pray. Three times each day the nuns take visitors to the crypt, where relics such as bones, a fingernail and hair of the martyrs are kept. Outside the convent, traffic thunders along, the super-rich live in their mansions with a view of Hyde Park, and shoppers seek their consumer heaven on Oxford Street.
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