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Uxbridge is a place in the London Borough of Hillingdon in west London.
It is part of the historic county of Middlesex. To this day the Post Office regards it as still being there, due to the postal counties following different boundaries.
There were negotiations between Charles I and the Parliamentary side in Uxbridge, January 30 to February 22, 1645, commemorated in the name of a local pub and restaurant, the Treaty House. This latter is on the A4020 Oxford Road where it leaves the town, at the canal overbridge.
The former Grand Junction Canal now Grand Union Canal pases immediately to the west of Uxbridge, and forms the Borough boundary.
There were three railway stations - Uxbridge Vine Street (originally just Uxbridge Station), Uxbridge High Street, and Uxbridge Belmont Road. All three have now closed. The line formerly to Belmont Road now terminates at the present station, Uxbridge, fronting the pedestrianised High Street, and is served by the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines from Rayners Lane. The lines formerly serving the other two stations have been closed and lifted, and the formations largely built over.
It contains the European headquarters of Xerox and the Anadarko Algeria Oil Company. Adjoining the town is RAF Uxbridge, where many Royal Air Force personnel are based. It was from here that much of the Battle of Britain was controlled by 11 Group. The site is only rarely open to the public. Other employers include Unisys and Coca-Cola.
Uxbridge derives its name from "Wuxen Bridge" which must have been near the bottom of Oxford Road, where the "Swan and Bottle" now stands. The Wuxen were a seventh-century Saxon tribe. The Grand Union Canal connects London with Birmingham. The first stretch was built in the late eighteenth century from Brentford to Uxbridge. Further upsteam is Uxbridge Lock, and nearby is a flour mill belonging to Allied Mills. This was bought in the nineteenth century by a Mister King, who called it "Kingsmill". This brand name is one of the best-selling bread-makers in the UK, though most of the milling is now done on Tyneside.
When the new shopping mall The Chimes was being built, archaeologists found Bronze age remains (before 700 BC) and medieval remains. Two miles away at Denham Upper Paleolithic remains have been found.
Uxbridge is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of the 11th century, but a hundred years later the existing church, St Margaret's, was built. The covered market was built in 1788, but the previous building was about twice as big, creating big problems for traffic. The existing pub, "The Queens Head", has a sign depicting Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII. The pub was previously called "The Axe" and possibly dates from the 1540's. A tunnel connects the pub to the church.
At the bottom of Windsor Street there is a cemetery with an archway. It was here on Lynch Green that three heretics were burned to death in 1555. Foxe's Book of Martyrs gives the names as John Denley, Robert Smith and Patrick Packingham, but other sources call the last one Patrick Rockingham. He was found guilty of denying the trinity.
Under Elizabeth I, Catholics were subject to severe constraints. Edmund Campion was a Catholic priest, trained in Douai in the Netherlands, to give covert support to Catholics. He travelled around England on horseback, giving sermons in secret and pretending to be a diamond merchant. In 1580 he came to Uxbridge and hid for a couple of weeks, in a house owned by William Catesby. In 1581 Campion was caught. He was hung and drawn and quartered in London. The 40 or so Catholics who died in this period are called the "Douai martyrs" which is also the name of the local Catholic secondary school, in Ickenham.
In 1604 the Gunpowder Plot was uncovered. The flamboyant six-foot leader, Robert Catesby (son of William) escaped and hid in his house in Uxbridge. He was later shot.
For about 200 years most of London's flour was produced in the Uxbridge area. There were also breweries, but the last one was closed down in the 1930's. Near here Ellen Terry the Shakespearean actress spent here final years, as a pub landlady.
In the 1930's George Orwell was a teacher at Frays College, now Frays Adult Education Centre. His novel A Clergyman's Daughter was based on his experiences there.
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