Lord of the manor
In English and Irish history, the lordship of a manor is a lordship emanating from the feudal system of manorialism. In modern England and Wales, it is recognised as a form of property, one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined, may be held in moieties: the title. A title similar to such a lordship is known in French as Seigneur du Manoir, Welsh as Breyr, Gutsherr in German, Godsherre in Norwegian and Swedish, Ambachtsheer in Dutch and Signore or Vassallo in Italian. A lord of the manor might be a tenant-in-chief if he held a capital manor directly from the Crown; the origins of the lordship of manors arose in the Anglo-Saxon system of manorialism. Following the Norman conquest, land at the manorial level was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086; the title cannot nowadays be subdivided. This has been prohibited since 1290 in the Statute of Quia Emptores that prevents tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants wishing to alienate their land to do so by substitution.
Lord Denning, in Corpus Christi College Oxford v Gloucestershire County Council QB 360, described the manor thus: In medieval times the manor was the nucleus of English rural life. It was an administrative unit of an extensive area of land; the whole of it was owned by the lord of the manor. He lived in the big house called the manor house. Attached to it were many acres of grassland and woodlands called the park; these were the "demesne lands". Dotted all round were the enclosed homes and land occupied by the “tenants of the manor”; the owner of a lordship of the manor can be described as, Lord/Lady of the Manor of, sometimes shortened to Lord or Lady of. In modern times any person may choose to use a name, not the property of another. Under English common law a person may choose to be known by any name he sees fit as long as it is not done to commit fraud or evade an obligation. A manorial lordship is not a noble title. Lordship in this sense is a synonym for ownership, although this ownership involved a historic legal jurisdiction in the form of the court baron.
The journal Justice of the Peace & Local Government Law advises that the position is unclear as to whether a lordship of a manor is a title of honour or a dignity, as this is yet to be tested by the courts. Technically, lords freemen. John Selden in his esteemed work Titles of Honour writes, "The word Baro hath been so much communicated, that not only all Lords of Manors have been from ancient time, are at this day called sometimes Barons But the Judges of the Exchequer have it from antient time fixed on them."John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary and co-author of The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, gave his opinion that "Lordship of this or that manor is no more a title than Landlord of The Dog and Duck". The style'Lord of the Manor of X' or'Lord of X' is, in this sense, more of a description than a title, somewhat similar to the term Laird in Scotland. King's College, Cambridge have given the view that the term'indicated wealth and privilege, it carried rights and responsibilities'.
Since 1965 Lords of the Manor have been entitled to compensation in the event of compulsory purchase. Before the Land Registration Act 2002 it was possible for manors to be registered with HM Land Registry. Manorial incidents, which are the rights that a lord of the manor may exercise over other people's land, lapsed on 12 October 2013 if not registered by with the Land Registry; this is a separate issue to the registration of lordships of manors, since both registered and unregistered lordships will continue to exist after that date. It is only their practical rights that will lose what is called'overriding interest', or in other words the ability to affect land if the interests or rights are not registered against that land, as of 12 October 2013. Manorial incidents can still be recorded for either unregistered manors; this issue does not affect the existence of the title of lord of the manor. There have been cases where manors have been sold and the seller has unknowingly parted with rights to unregistered land in England and Wales.
In England in the Middle Ages, land was held of the English monarch or ruler by a powerful local supporter, who gave protection in return. The people who had sworn homage to the lord were known as vassals. Vassals were nobles who served loyalty in return for being given the use of land. After the Norman conquest of England, all land in England was owned by the monarch who granted the use of it by means of a transaction known as enfeoffment, to earls and others, in return for military service; the person who held feudal land directly from the king was known as a tenant-in-chief. Military servic
Earl of Shrewsbury
Earl of Shrewsbury is a hereditary title of nobility created twice in the Peerage of England. The second earldom dates to 1442; the holder of the Earldom of Shrewsbury holds the title of Earl of Waterford in the Peerage of Ireland and Earl Talbot in the Peerage of Great Britain. Shrewsbury and Waterford are the oldest earldoms in their peerages held by someone with no higher title, as such the Earl of Shrewsbury is sometimes described as the premier earl of England and Ireland; the first creation occurred in 1074 for Roger de Montgomerie, one of William the Conqueror's principal counselors. He was one of the Marcher Lords, with the Earl of Hereford and the Earl of Chester, a bulwark against the Welsh. Roger was succeeded in 1094 by his younger son Hugh, his elder son Robert of Bellême succeeding to his lands in Normandy. On Hugh’s death in 1098 the earldom passed to his brother Robert; the title was forfeit in 1102 after the 3rd Earl, rebelled against Henry I and joined Robert Curthose's invasion of England in 1101.
These earls were sometimes styled Earl of Shropshire. The title was created for a second time in 1442 when John Talbot, 7th Baron Talbot, an English general in the Hundred Years' War, was made Earl of Shrewsbury in the Peerage of England, he was made hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland and, in 1446, Earl of Waterford in the Peerage of Ireland. John Talbot, the first Earl, was succeeded by his son John, the second Earl, who had succeeded as seventh Baron Furnivall on his mother's death in 1433. Lord Shrewsbury served as both Lord Chancellor of Lord High Treasurer of England, he was killed at the Battle of Northampton in 1460 during the Wars of the Roses. His grandson, the fourth Earl, was Lord Steward of the Household between 1509 and 1538, his son, the fifth Earl, was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration as Lord Talbot in 1533, five years before he succeeded his father. On his death the titles passed to the sixth Earl, he was summoned to the House of Lords through a writ of acceleration as Lord Talbot in 1553.
Lord Shrewsbury was entrusted with the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, served as Earl Marshal from 1572 to 1590. He married as his second wife the famous Bess of Hardwick. Shrewsbury was succeeded by his son from his first marriage to Lady Gertrude Manners, the seventh Earl, he served as Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. He had no sons and on his death in 1616 the baronies of Talbot, Strange of Blackmere and Furnivall fell into abeyance between his three daughters, he was succeeded in the earldoms by the eighth Earl. He was Member of Parliament for Northumberland, he was succeeded by his distant relative, the ninth Earl. He was the great-great-grandson of third son of the second Earl of Shrewsbury; the family bought Barlow Woodseats Hall in 1593 as part of the estate. He was succeeded by his nephew, the tenth Earl and Lord of Grafton, he was the son of John Talbot of Grafton. On his death the titles passed to the eleventh Earl, he was killed in a duel with George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. His son, the twelfth Earl, was a prominent statesman.
He was one of the Immortal Seven who in 1688 invited William of Orange to invade England and depose his father-in-law James II and served under William and Mary as Secretary of State for the Southern Department and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In 1694 he was created Marquess of Duke of Shrewsbury in the Peerage of England; the Duke was childless and on his death in 1718 the marquessate and dukedom became extinct. He was succeeded in his other titles by the thirteenth Earl, he was the son of second son of the tenth Earl. Lord Shrewsbury was in the Holy Orders of the Church of Rome. On his death the titles passed to the fourteenth Earl, he was succeeded by his nephew Charles, the fifteenth Earl. He began in 1812 the creation of the extensive gardens at Alveton Lodge, Staffordshire which estate had been in the family since the 15th century; when he died the titles were inherited by his nephew John, the sixteenth Earl, the son of the Hon. John Joseph Talbot; when in 1831 the principal home of the family at Heythrop, Oxfordshire was destroyed by fire he moved the family seat to Alton Towers.
The sixteenth Earl was a noted patron of A W N Pugin. He was succeeded by Bertram, his second cousin once removed, the seventeenth Earl, the great-grandson of the Hon. George Talbot, younger son of the aforementioned Gilbert Talbot, second son of the tenth Earl. Bertram died unmarried at an early age in 1856. By his will he left his estates to Lord Edmund Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, but the will was contested by three distant relatives and after a long and expensive legal case the House of Lords ruled in 1860 in favour of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, who thus became the eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, he was a descendant of the aforementioned the Hon. Sir Gilbert Talbot, third son of the second Earl of Shrewsbury (see the Earl Tal
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty known as the National Trust, is an independent charity and membership organisation for environmental and heritage conservation in England and Northern Ireland. It is the largest membership organisation in the United Kingdom; the trust describes itself as "a charity that works to preserve and protect historic places and spaces—for for everyone". The trust was founded in 1895 and given statutory powers, starting with the National Trust Act 1907; the trust tended to focus on English country houses, which still make up the largest part of its holdings, but it protects historic landscapes such as in the Lake District, historic urban properties, nature reserves. In Scotland, there is an independent National Trust for Scotland; the Trust has special powers to prevent land being sold off or mortgaged, although this can be over-ridden by Parliament. The National Trust has been the beneficiary of bequests, it owns over 350 heritage properties, which includes many historic houses and gardens, industrial monuments, social history sites.
Most of these are open to the public for a charge. Others are leased, on terms; the Trust is one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, owning over 247,000 hectares of land, including many characteristic sites of natural beauty, most of which are open to the public free of charge. The Trust, one of the largest UK charities financially, is funded by membership subscriptions, entrance fees and revenue from gift shops and restaurants within its properties, it has been accused of focusing too much on country estates, in recent years, the trust has sought to broaden its activities by acquiring historic properties such as former mills, early factories and the childhood homes of Paul McCartney and John Lennon. In 2015, the trust undertook a governance review to mark the 10th anniversary of the current governance structure; the review led to the downsizing of the limitation of tenure to two terms. The National Trust was incorporated in 1895 as an "association not for profit" under the Companies Acts 1862–90, in which the liability of its members was limited by guarantee.
It was incorporated by six separate Acts of Parliament: The National Trust Acts 1907, 1919, 1937, 1939, 1953, 1971. It is a charitable organisation registered under the Charities Act 2006, its formal purpose is: The trust was founded on 12 January 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley, prompted in part by the earlier success of Charles Eliot and the Kyrle Society. In the early days, the trust was concerned with protecting open spaces and a variety of threatened buildings; the trust's first nature reserve was Wicken Fen, its first archaeological monument was White Barrow. The trust has been the beneficiary of numerous donations of money. From 1924 to 1931, the trust's chairman was John Bailey, of whom The Times said in 1931, "The strong position which the National Trust now occupies is due to him, it will never be known how many generous gifts of rural beauty and historic interest the nation owes, directly or indirectly, to his persuasive enthusiasm." At the same time, a group of anonymous philanthropists set up the Ferguson's Gang.
The focus on country houses and gardens, which now comprise the majority of its most visited properties, came about in the mid 20th century when the private owners of many of the properties were no longer able to afford to maintain them. Many were donated to the trust in lieu of death duties; the diarist James Lees-Milne is credited with playing a central role in the main phase of the trust's country house acquisition programme, though he was in fact an employee of the trust, was carrying through policies decided by its governing body. Sir Jack Boles, Director General of the Trust between 1975 and 1983, oversaw the acquisition of Wimpole Hall, Canons Ashby and Kingston Lacy; the last is a notable asset as it comprises an art collection, Corfe Castle, Studland Bay, Badbury Rings and a host of commercial and domestic buildings and land. One of the biggest crises in the trust's history erupted at the 1967 annual general meeting, when the leadership of the trust was accused of being out of touch and placing too much emphasis on conserving country houses.
In response, the council asked Sir Henry Benson to chair an advisory committee to review the structure of the trust. Following the publication of the Benson Report in 1968, much of the administration of the trust was devolved to the regions. In the 1990s, a dispute over whether deer hunting should be permitted on National Trust land caused bitter disputes within the organisation, was the subject of much debate at annual general meetings, but it did little to slow the growth in its membership numbers. In 2005, the trust moved to a new head office in Wiltshire; the building was constructed on an abandoned railway yard, is intended as a model of brownfield renewal. It is named Heelis, taken from the married name of children's author Beatrix Potter, a huge supporter of, donor to, the trust, which now owns the land she owned in Cumbria; the trust is an independent charity rather than a government institution. Historic England and
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, dug and surrounds a castle, building or town to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes and sluices. In older fortifications, such as hillforts, they are referred to as ditches, although the function is similar. In periods, moats or water defences may be ornamental, they could act as a sewer. Some of the earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient Egyptian castles. One example is at a castle excavated in Nubia. Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of Babylon, in reliefs from ancient Egypt and other cultures in the region. Evidence of early moats around settlements has been discovered in many archaeological sites throughout Southeast Asia, including Noen U-Loke, Ban Non Khrua Chut, Ban Makham Thae and Ban Non Wat; the use of the moats could have been either for agriculture purposes. Moats were excavated around castles and other fortifications as part of the defensive system as an obstacle outside the walls.
In suitable locations they might be filled with water. A moat made access to the walls difficult for siege weapons, such as siege towers and battering rams, which needed to be brought up against a wall to be effective. A water-filled moat made the practice of mining, digging tunnels under the castles in order to effect a collapse of the defences difficult as well. Segmented moats have one section filled with water. Dry moats cut across the narrow part of a spur or peninsula are called neck ditches. Moats separating different elements of a castle, such as the inner and outer wards are cross ditches; the word adapted in Middle English from the Old French motte "mound, hillock" and was first applied to the central mound on which a castle was erected, came to be applied to the excavated ring, a "dry moat". The shared derivation implies that the two features were related and constructed at the same time; the term moat is applied to natural formations reminiscent of the artificial structure, to similar modern architectural features.
With the introduction of siege artillery, a new style of fortification emerged in the 16th century using low walls and projecting strong points called bastions, known as the trace italienne. The walls were further protected from infantry attack by wet or dry moats, sometimes in elaborate systems; when this style of fortification was superseded by lines of polygonal forts in the mid-19th century, moats continued to be used for close protection. The Walls of Benin were a combination of ramparts and moats, called Iya, used as a defense of the capital Benin City in present-day Edo State of Nigeria, it was considered the largest man-made structure lengthwise, second only to the Great Wall of China and the largest earthwork in the world. With more recent work by Patrick Darling, it has been established as the largest man-made structure in the world, larger than Sungbo's Eredo in Nigeria, it enclosed 6,500 km2 of community lands. Its length was over 16,000 km of earth boundaries, it was estimated that earliest construction continued into the mid-15th century.
The walls are built of a dike structure. The Benin Walls were ravaged by the British in 1897. Scattered pieces of the walls remain in Edo, with material being used by the locals for building purposes; the walls continue to be torn down for real estate developments. The Walls of Benin City were the world's largest man-made structure. Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist: "They extend for some 16,000 kilometres in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries, they were all dug by the Edo people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops, they took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, are the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet." Japanese castles have elaborate moats, sometimes with many moats laid out in concentric circles around the castle and a host of different patterns engineered around the landscape. Japanese castles will have up to three of these concentric moats.
The outer moat of Japanese castles protects other support buildings in addition to the castle. As many Japanese castles have been a central part of their respective city, the moats have provided a vital waterway to the city. In modern times, the moat system of the Tokyo Imperial Palace comprises a active body of water, hosting everything from rental boats and fishing ponds to restaurants. Most modern Japanese castles have moats filled with water, but castles in the feudal period more had'dry moats' karabori, a trench. A tatebori is a dry moat. A unejo tatebori is a series of parallel trenches running up the sides of the excavated mountain, the earthen wall, called doi, was an outer wall made of earth dug out from a moat. Today, it is common for mountain Japanese castles to have dry moats. A mizubori is a moat filled with water. Moats were used in the Forbidden City and Xi'an in China; the only moat fort b
Swaffham
Swaffham is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated 31 miles west of Norwich; the civil parish has an area of 11.42 sq mi and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,935 in 3,130 households, which increased to 7,258, in 3,258 households, at the 2011 census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of Breckland; the name of the town derives from the Old English Swǣfa hām = "the homestead of the Swabians". By the 14th and 15th centuries Swaffham had a flourishing sheep and wool industry As a result of this prosperity, the town has a large market place; the market cross here was built by George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford and presented to the town in 1783. On the top is the statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. About 8 km to the north of Swaffham can be found the ruins of the important Castle Acre Priory and Castle Acre Castle. On the west side of Swaffham Market Place are several old buildings which for many years housed the historic Hamond's Grammar School, as a plaque on the wall of the main building explains.
The Hamond's Grammar School building latterly came to serve as the sixth form for the Hamond's High School, but that use has since ceased. Harry Carter, the grammar school's art teacher of the 1960s, was responsible for a great number of the carved village signs that are now found in many of Norfolk's towns and villages, including Swaffham's own sign commemorating the legendary Pedlar of Swaffham, in the corner of the market place just opposite the old school's gates. Carter was a distant cousin of the archaeologist and egyptologist Howard Carter who spent much of his childhood in the town; the Swaffham Museum contains an exhibition on local history and local geology as well as an Egyptology room charting the life of Howard Carter. Swaffham was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. Swaffham is one of the many locations for The Man; the tale tells of a pedlar from Swaffham who dreamed for several consecutive nights that if he waited on London Bridge he would hear good news.
He travelled to London, waited for several days on the bridge. A shopkeeper asked him why he was waiting, the man told of his dream; the shopkeeper laughed, replied that he dreamed that if he went to a certain orchard in Swaffham and started digging, he would find buried treasure. The pedlar returned to Swaffham, found the treasure; the church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is one of only a few churches that have angels carved in wood instead of stone around the top of the walls. The current building, dating from 1454, is built on the foundation of the original church. A wood carving of the “Pedlar of Swaffham” is in the church; until 1968 the town was served by Swaffham railway station on the Great Eastern Railway line from King's Lynn. Just after Swaffham, the line split into two, one branch heading south to Thetford, the other east towards Dereham; the railways were all closed as part of the Beeching Axe, though the possibility of rebuilding a direct rail link from Norwich to King's Lynn via Swaffham is raised.
The east-west A47 Birmingham to Great Yarmouth road now avoids the town, using a northerly bypass opened in 1981. The A1065 Mildenhall to Fakenham road still passes through the centre of the town on its north-south route, intersecting with the A47 at a grade separated junction north of the town. Swaffham has a Non-League football club Swaffham Town F. C. which plays at Shoemakers Lane. Swaffham Raceway, a former greyhound track, hosts stock car racing. Today the town is known for the presence of two large Enercon E-66 wind turbines and the associated former Green Britain Centre, known as the Ecotech Centre when it opened in 1999; the Green Britain Centre provided a venue for school trips, event hire and had an educational remit including sustainability in food and transport. It had displays focussing on green energy, transportation options without oil, organic gardening; the turbines are owned and operated by Ecotricity which took on the project in the 2000s and renamed it in 2012. Together the turbines generate more than three megawatts.
One wind turbine, an Enercon E66/1500 with 1.5 MW generation capacity, 67 metres nacelle height and 66 metres rotor diameter, built in 1999, has an observation deck just below the nacelle – it was the only wind turbine in the world, open for the public to climb. These turbines have since been joined by a further eight turbines at North Pickenham, though they are not owned by Ecotricity; the Green Britain Centre hosted the 2008 British BASE jumping championships. In June 2018 it was announced that the centre had closed for financial reasons and that Ecotricity intended to hand the building back to Breckland District Council; as with the rest of the British Isles and East Anglia, Swaffham experiences a maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest Met Office weather station to provide local climate data is RAF Marham, about 5 1⁄2 miles west of the town centre. Temperature extremes in the Swaffham-Marham area range from 34.8 °C in August 1990, down to −16.7 °C during February 1956.
The highest and lowest temperatures reported in the past decade are 34.6 °C during August 2003, −10.3 °C during January 2010. In the summer of 2006, location filming was done in the town for the ITV1 series Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry. In Kingdom the town is call
Priest hole
A priest hole is a hiding place for a priest built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England. When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, there were several Catholic plots designed to remove her and severe measures were taken against Catholic priests. Many great houses had a priest hole built so that the presence of a priest could be concealed when searches were made of the building, they were cleverly concealed in walls, under floors, behind wainscoting and other locations and were successful in concealing their occupant. Many priest holes were designed by the Jesuit lay brother Nicholas Owen, who spent much of his life building priest holes to protect the lives of persecuted priests. After the Gunpowder Plot, Owen himself was captured, taken to the Tower of London and tortured to death on the rack, he was canonised as a martyr by Pope Paul VI in 1970. The measures put in force shortly after Elizabeth's accession became much harsher after the Rising of the North and the Babington Plot in particular, the utmost severity of the law being enforced against seminary priests.
"Priest hunters" were tasked to locate any priests. An Act was passed prohibiting a member of the Roman Catholic Church from celebrating the rites of his faith on pain of forfeiture for the first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, imprisonment for life for the third. All those who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of high treason. A law was enacted which provided that if any "papist" should be found converting an Anglican, or other Protestant, to Catholicism, both would suffer death for high treason. In November 1591, a priest was hanged before the door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having said Mass there the month previously. Laws against seminary priests and "Recusants" were enforced with great severity after the Gunpowder Plot episode during James I's reign. Arrest for a priest meant imprisonment, torture and execution. England's castles and country houses had some precaution in the event of a surprise, such as a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at a moment's notice.
However, in the time of legal persecution the number of secret chambers and hiding-places increased in the houses of the old Catholic families. These took the form of apartments or chapels in secluded parts of the houses, or in the roof space, where Mass could be celebrated with the utmost privacy and safety. Nearby there was an artfully contrived hiding-place, not only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency, but to provide a place where the vestments, sacred vessels, altar furniture could be stored on short notice. Priest's holes were built in fireplaces and staircases and were constructed between the 1550s and 1605. Many such hiding places are attributed to a Jesuit lay brother, Nicholas Owen, who devoted the greater part of his life to constructing these places to protect the lives of persecuted priests. With incomparable skill Owen knew how to conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages, to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses, to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings.
But what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret that he would never disclose to another the place of concealment of any Catholic, he alone was both their builder. No one knows; some may still be undiscovered. They were sometimes built as an offshoot from a chimney. Another favorite entrance was behind panelling. Others were incorporated for example at Chesterton Hall, near Cambridge. Harvington Hall in Worcestershire has seven priest holes throughout the house, including access through the main staircase, a false fireplace. After the Gunpowder Plot, Owen himself was captured at Hindlip Hall, taken to the Tower of London and tortured to death on the rack, he was canonised as a martyr by Pope Paul VI in 1970. The effectiveness of priest holes was demonstrated by their success in baffling the exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants", described in contemporary accounts of the searches.
Search-parties would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to the physical tearing down of panelling and pulling up of floors. Another ploy would be for the searchers to pretend to leave and see if the priest would emerge from hiding, he might be half-starved, sore with prolonged confinement, afraid to breathe lest the least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where he was concealed. Sometimes a priest could die by lack of oxygen. Priest hunter Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom English & Irish Penal Laws Come Rack! Come Rope! Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea, an eText at Project Gutenberg, from which this article is derived. Article in The Blackpool Gazette:'Priest hole found in Tudor Hall', featuring a priest hole discovered by the owner of Mains Hall, Lancashire BBC Black Country feature about a priest hole in Moseley Old Hall, that harbored Charles II in 1651 as he fled from Cromwell's army "Gunpowder Plot hall for sale".
Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire: BBC News. 2 October 2002. Webpage about the priest hole at Naworth Castle, with historical notes and video
