3-078-018 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Cottage of Miles Syndercombe, at Shepherd's Bush Green, about to be demolished: front view, 1890. 'The ancient thatched cottage...is that hired and inhabited by Miles Syndercombe, in January 1657, for the purpose of assassinating Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, on his road from Hampton Court to London. Cromwell discovered the conspiracy, and Syndercombe was arrested, tried, and condemned to death. He lay prisoner in the Tower until the morning appointed for hanging him, when he was found dead in his bed. It was believed that he had taken poison, surreptitiously brought to him by his sister the night before. His corpse was dragged by a horse to the foot of the gallows, and was there buried, as that of a suicide, with a stake driven through the heart. Miles Syndercombe had formerly been a soldier of the Roundhead Army, and a trusted personal attendant of Cromwell during the Civil War, but his wife was in league with the Royalists...The purchaser...has consented to allow visitors to view the premises on presenting their cards. They should call between three and five in the afternoon, and they are expected to contribute a small sum to the Shepherd's Bush Philanthropic Society or the West London Hospital'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.