The Martyr's Elm, Brentwood — where William Hunter burned

London · United Kingdom · Execution site

Pupils have met a figure in the corridors and stairwells for generations — the school stands on the exact spot where nineteen-year-old William Hunter burned in 1555.

Brentwood School stands literally on a pyre. On 26 March 1555 the nineteen-year-old silk-weaver's apprentice William Hunter was led out onto Ingrave Road and burned alive; his crime was reading the Bible in English in the village chapel. He had been imprisoned for nine months and had refused again and again to recant — Bishop Bonner offered him forty pounds and the freedom of London if he would take it back, and he said no. He became Essex's first martyr of Mary Tudor's reign. On the spot where he burned an elm was later planted, known as the Martyr's Elm, and the ground became the site of the school, founded in 1558. A memorial plaque carries the lines WILLIAM HUNTER. MARTYR. Committed to the Flames March 26th MDLV. Generation after generation of pupils has since told of a figure glimpsed in corridors and stairwells.

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The Martyr's Elm, Brentwood — where William Hunter burned is in London, United Kingdom.

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