Timeline

1555 Uxbridge having become protestant during the reign of Edward VI remained so when the catholic queen "bloody" Mary had three martyrs burned at the stake at Uxbridge.
1603 there were 176 deaths from plague, more than 10% of the town population.
1625 Plague in the town again
1642 Parliamentary troops marched through the town and Jehemiah Wharton, one of the party, recorded that this day the communions rails of Uxbridge... were, with the service book, burned.
1645 Negotiations between the forces for the King and the forces for Parliament took place at Place House (later the Crown and Treaty Inn).
There were 32 men for each side, the Royalists taking the south side of the town and the Crown Inn for their HQ, and the parliamentary forces taking the north side and the George Inn for their HQ.
1647 Parliamentary HQ in Uxbridge: the new Model Army set up camp in Uxbridge. On this occasion, Cromwell stayed at the Crown Inn.
164? George, Lord Chandos, owner of the tolls and market rights killed Mr Compton, brother of Lord Northampton and fled to the continent.
1649 King Charles I beheaded
1652 George Fox has great success in the North.
1652 there was a pillory standing in Windsor Street Green in Uxbridge
1655 Francis Howgill, friend of Edward Burrough, wrote a letter to Cromwell. Some of Cromwell's servants were convinced by it, including Theophilus Green, who attended meeting at Uxbridge.
1657 About a thousand friends were in prison for their beliefs
1658 Edward Burrough, a pioneer of the Quakers, was holding meetings in the house of William Winch. Burrough established a monthly meeting (Longford Monthly Meeting) but by the end of 1658 had lft the district.
1658 Cromwell dies; son Richard takes over the Protectorate.
1658 John Sands wrote to George Fox for guidance and got a long reply addressed to the people of Uxbridge in 1659.
1659 Vicars of Hillingdon and Colnbrook engaged in public dispute with Quakers at West Drayton
1660 Meetings being held at the house of Nicholls (probably William Nicholl), Robert Hall, and Hugh Butler.
1660 Samuel Pepys begins his diary. Intends to go to a Quaker meeting but goes to the wrong tavern and misses the meeting.
1660 Restoration of Monarchy.
1662 George Pitt married Lord Chandos's widow and filed a suit for return of the market tolls.
1665 Cases of bubonic plague in the town.
1666 Great Fire of London
1667 William Penn becomes a Quaker, and is arrested
1699 By 1669 meetings were being held in three houses, organised by Uxbridge tradesman Timothy Fry, Edward Swift, Cooper, Richard Hale, collar maker. The one held in William Nicholls house was probably the most important of the three.
1669 William Penn was released
1671 William Penn was imprisoned for preaching, from February to July
1689 William Penn was arrested for treason against William and Mary
1691 George Fox dies.
1701 Waterworks was constructed in he town by John Yarnold. Water was laid on to the top of the town in the morning, and the bottom of the town in the afternoon one day and the reverse the following day
1750 onwards the County Court met alternately at the George in Uxbridge
1769 Road from Tyburn to Uxbridge is 14 miles, six furlongs, 37 poles. Busiest road in the kingdom, at the end of the 18th century it is notoriously bad and difficult to travel.
1769 Enclosure Acts meant open fields were enclosed with hedges. Land which had been under arable crops were enclosed and the fields put under grass. Demand for hay in London brought prosperity and armies of workers were brought in at hay cutting time.

Carts leaving Uxbridge at 3 am in the morning would return 7 pm at night because although only 15 miles, the roads were so bad.
1770 a fire engine was purchased by the town
1775 the Town Workhouse had 60 paupers
1782 population of Uxbridge s 1712 people in 366 houses
1785 Old Market house in Uxbridge demolished
1788 New Market house constructed at a cost of £3000, £2000 coming form the Quaker Thomas Hull
1791 Bank established in Uxbridge by Norton and Mercer
1793 The Grand Junction canal was started
1795 Relief of the poor cost the town £450 per year, paid to Joseph Packer
1796 One of the town's mills, owned by John and Nicholas Mercer, was destroyed by fire.
1798 Grand Junction canal reached Uxbridge
1798 Copper Mill established.
1799 or 1800 The water supply from the waterworks ceased. For a time water was provided by watercarts until the lords of the Manor dug three wells... one at the George Inn, another at the corner of St Margaret's church and a third opposite the Rose and Crown.
1801 population of Uxbridge is 2111 people in 375 houses
1803 the Town workhouse had 76 inmates.
1803 By then 121 men employed by Mines Royal Copper Co
1806 New bank established by Hull, Smith and Norton
1811 Population of Uxbridge is 2411 in 435 houses
1817 Meeting House rebuilt and burial ground enlarged.
1818 the Curfew bell was still sounding twice a day, at 5 am and 8 pm. It signaled to cover the fire.
1823 Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) mentions coming to Uxbridge meeting in her journal
1833 some streets were lighted by gas.
RF established a camp on the north side of Uxbridge Road.
1960s Brunel University moved from acton to Uxbridge.
1962 by then the successive councils had erected 4702 dwellings in the borough of which approximately two thirds were sited in Hillingdon old parish.
There were also 2000 acres of open spaces, parks and recreation grounds, representing approximately 20 per cent of the area of the borough, including nearly 80 a of permanent and temporary allotments.
1965 new Borough of Hillingdon was formed.

George Inn (no longer exists)

The George Inn features strongly in the first century of the Quakers in Uxbridge. It was there that people met in the dangerous days when holding a meeting for worship might make you liable for heavy fines or to go to prison. It was owned by Quakers, which seems incongruous now, when so the Quakers are associated with abstinence or moderation in alcohol.

Uxbridge had a huge number of pubs in the 17th and 18th centuries, and was associated with milling and brewing.

In 1831 the Mirror published an engraving of the back of the George Inn, and said:
"The George Inn still remains, though it has been greatly diminished, A portion has been taken off either end in the man street, and converted into two good dwelling houses with shops; the one in the eastern end is now occupied by Mr Handy and that on the western by Mr Basset. The whole is still under one roof. The interior has been much altered. The panelled wainscotting and some old carving formerly to be seen in several rooms, is removed. This estate if the property of Samuel Salter, Esq of Rickmansworth, Herts. The house was considerably larger than now appears. There still remains, notwithstanding all the alterations that have been made, one spacious room which was formerly used for many years as a dissenting place of worship, and the county court is still held in it. Though the inn appears now but as a second-rate house, yet, a very slight inspection of the premises would show that they were able to afford ample accommodation to the Parliamentary commissioners. Here is at the present day stabling for upwards of sixty horses. Many of the rooms are turned into corn lofts, and the whole apearance is materially changed from what it must have been at the time of the treaty.

"It appear therefore, that at the Treaty House the parties met. The present George Inn was the place where the Parliamentary Commissioners sojourned; the abode of the King's Commissioners exists no longer as an Inn.

"We have extracted these particulars from a very respectable history of Uxbridge, published there a few years since. To the same source are we indebted for the original of the first engraving. The second is from a sketch by a zealous correspondent at Windsor. We visited Uxbridge a few weeks since, and found all accommodations of the George Inn to the letter. There is, however, a sad lack of carved and panelled work in the premises. The large room before spoken of as the rendezvous of the County Court is also appropriated to still more social assemblages. There scores of jovial souls meet ever and anon (for Uxbridge, like every other country-town, has its choice spirits) to quaff away their cares, and blow adrift life's troubles in a cloud of smoke.

"We ungratefully forget whether Uxbridge is famed for ale; we know it is for malt, but then the River Colne and the Grand Junction Canal are hard by. The obliging person who showed us the large room said something too about Harmonic Meetings: it is to be hoped the Parliamentary Commissioners were as harmonious there as are the occasional occupants in our times."
(from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, Saturday Novermber 5, 1831.)

By the time that the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society visited Uxbridge in 1861, the George was still standing but ad been much altered. George Eves wrote in his paper for the Society that: "Uxbridge has always been noted for the number of its inns: Camden says in his time this town was "full of inns". There are still twenty-one left...." He continued: "The George Inn still remains but much altered. The outside staircase in the yard was removed about three years back: I have a print of it lent me by Mr Hutson, shewing the yard, stairs and entrance from the street; it is taken from a sketch made by Sir W. Ross, the artist, who was a native of this town; his father lived in a house that adjoined the church...."

The Old Mill

At one time the Hull family in Uxbridge held three of the mils in Uxbridge. I didn't realise that the Old Mill Club in Uxbridge, which is just before the bridge by the Swan and Bottle as you come into town, was actually one of the old mills of Uxbridge. It is now a restaurant.

I suppose I assumed that like many pubs, it had taken its name from its surroundings. But this is one of the Mills which the Hulls of Uxbridge once used to bring thousands of sacks of flour to London.The mill race is still there underneath the building, although the mill wheel has long gone.

During the 1920s and 30s it had been a tea rooms, and then during the war it was changed into a private place of entertainment. The close proximity of the RAF camp and the film studios at Denham meant that it was very lively. There are tales in one of the histories of the Quakers of people having too much to drink and falling in the mill pond.

Since the second world war, it has been a private members club, and now a restaurant.

Introduction

I have lived in Uxbridge for nearly 40 years, and have always felt that I missed Uxbridge when it was at its best historically. I arrived just as the old courtyards had been demolished to make way for what is now the Pavilions shopping centre, and just after the old Six Bells pub had been moved to make way for a roundabout.

I've always been interested in the history of the place that I live in, and recently gathered information together for a history of the Quakers in Uxbridge. In the course of that investigation, I realised that there are actually quite a number of older buildings still in existence in Uxbridge, and even when the buildings have long gone, it is interesting to know what was once on the site of a new office building or shopping centre.

I was surprised to discover that it was impossible to find pictures online of some of the older buildings in Uxbridge, and so decided to start a blog and put onto it the pictures we have taken in the course of our Quaker investigations.

Eventually, I would like to link the pictures and information with a map, to enable people to explore the history of Uxbridge for themselves.

I try extremely hard to respect other people's copyright and so the images you see on this website are either ones made by others that I believe are now free from copyright due to their age, or are taken by me or my family and are our copyright.

If you have images of Uxbridge that you would be willing to allow us to use, or have suggestions about the things we show on this site, please feel free to contact us via caliandrisATgmailDOTcom.
Fee Berry
Uxbridge, Middlesex
September 2008