Oxford Catholic martyrs

Oxford Catholic martyrs

Remembering all martyrs

In October 2008, a plaque was affixed to the outside wall of 100 Holywell Street, the closest spot to the site of Holywell Gallows, to commemorate the four Catholics who were executed there in July 1589. The men had been arrested together at the Catherine Wheel Inn in Magdalen Street. Two of them – Nichols and Yaxley – were Roman Catholic priests ordained abroad and sent on a pastoral mission to England. The other two were laymen: Prichard, a Welsh servant at the inn, and Belson, a gentleman from a recusant family who had attended the Catholic College in Rheims. The priests were found guilty of treason and the laymen of felony for assisting the priests. The Latin Mass Society initiated the project to mark the sites of Catholic martyrdom in Oxford and brought on board the Oxford Preservation Trust and Oxfordshire County Council to make it happen.

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Museum of Oxford

Photo credit: Kastrel, CC BY-SA 3.0

Plaque with the inscription 'Near this spot George Nichols, Richard Yaxley, Thomas Belson, Humphrey Pritchard were executed for their Catholic Faith 5th July 1589'.