[Music] Hi my name's Kevin Hicks welcome to my
YouTube channel The History Squad. Now today we're back in my home country
of England, we're at Harvington Hall, which has its feet in the medieval times but
is known as an Elizabethan moated manor house. That's quite the extraordinary place because it's
got seven priest hides. It's a house of secrets. Before we go in I thought I'd mention the
fact that this is a fully moted manor house the medieval times you'd often have houses
where they would quarry around the outside for building materials and then it would become
the moat but this is both a quarried moat and also it's naturally fed. So this once the water
filters through the actual sandstone of the house it fills an internal well which we'll have a look
at later and in the day that water was nice fresh and clean. It's still pretty good today, but
I'll show you that later on. Now the reason they had a moat it was for defense basically one
of the amazing things about this house is it's been changed around and the windows don't make
sense if you have a look you can see it's all what we call in England higgledy-piggledy and
look at that, more higgledy-piggledy windows this house doesn't make sense, but then again
it's not meant to make sense. This is a house that's built to confuse. Those persuivants,
the priest hunters. There's a bit of a clue, this is an Elizabethan Catholic house. You
had a priest in here, you had to hide him. It's sad really you know during the reign of
Elizabeth the first it was illegal to celebrate Catholic mass, although strangely being a
Catholic wasn't. Now Humphrey Packington who inherited Harvington Hall in 1578 was a
staunch Catholic he was a recusant meaning he refused to attend the Church of England
service and this cost him a lot of money because he was heavily fined for not attending
the church services. So to continue to practice his Catholic faith he had a number of priest
hides built throughout the hall so that any resident priest could be hidden if the place
was ever searched. So we're at the entrance, we're going to cross over the moat, let's go
inside take a look at this house of secrets. Every house needs a kitchen.
This is a fine example of an Elizabethan kitchen. White wash walls,
limestone flags and you have two fires. This one has got some later additions,
whereas this is actually turned, the spit is turned by weights. Originally it
would have been a spit boy would be doing it, but what makes this house a little bit rare
when it comes to the kitchen is what's here. It has an indoor well. This is moat water. Let me drop this down. I have to jiggle it around
to get some water in it. If need, a bit of pressure. So this water comes from the
moat, the same place where some of the poop goes, but it doesn't get piped into here.
What happens is, the water is filtered through the sandstone of the house
itself, and if you have a look. That is clear water. I don't suppose it's safe enough to
drink nowadays, but in those days how wonderful to have a well actually inside the kitchen. I've never seen another one of these, Harvington Hall certainly does have
some secrets. Now pie oven. I love pies. These pies, they're not real. Made by my old
friend Dave Bills. Well done Dave, pork pies, you can't beat them. But there was a priest
hide above this, accessed from another part of the house. So many secrets locked up. So you
imagine somebody trying to search this house. The floors don't match, the windows don't level up,
there are so many different things, I love it. If you come with me I'll show you
that priest hide above the oven. Don't you just love this? Had its own brew house. And what they've done is they've taken a few
bricks out so that we can actually see inside the priest hide which was accessed further
up. Wow. This is one of the smaller priest hides but the good thing about this one is
it was warm, being just behind the pie oven. So we're just going inside Lady Yates's bed
chamber, this is complete. Let's have a look. Mary Yate was the daughter of Humphrey Packington
and was the last member of the Packington family to ever live at Harvington Hall. She died in 1696
aged 85. Beautiful original paneling on the walls, this is quite incredible when you
think how this house has survived. Original floorboards, once again higgledy
piggledy. The interesting thing about these original floorboards is this, the house has aged
and it's changed shape, you have the undulating floorboards and it's a great characteristic
of these old houses. I'm walking downhill. Quite wonderful, quite special and you take a look
in here this isn't just a bed chamber it had its own ensuite, its own privy. And it's brilliant
because it empties straight into the moat. It doesn't pong. So we're in the withdrawing room of the house
where after dinner the ladies would withdraw, relax, that kind of thing. The
ceiling has got exposed beams but this is actually part of the medieval
side of the house the original part of the house but what makes this special
is two things have a look at this. This is a ladder from a priest hide, Elizabethan.
It was longer than this I mean this is covered in, in woodworm. They are very rare. I understand
there's only a couple others in existence this would have gone down into a priest hide so that
the priest could escape detection and it just so happens I know where the hide is in this room.
Let's go and have a look. Oh I best put this back. Shh, don't tell them I moved it. So this is a cupboard but it's one
of these places in the room that doesn't quite make sense. You open
it but it's actually a passageway. But if you lift the floorboards up there is a
ladder going down around 12 feet into a priest hide. Now this ladder is reproduction but the
priest hide is original, just take a look at that just under the floorboards in a corridor. It's not
the most secret, it's not the most cleverly done, but this is the original part of the house.
We're going to explore and find some more. Okay let's check out the Great
Chamber, have a look inside. This room actually was uh it's one
of the large rooms of their house,, it was the family room the entertainment room so
they could dine here have friends, dancing, music. And there you have Humphrey Packington
himself. Abigail his wife. I believe there was some like 30 years difference in
age between the two and he didn't conceive his first child till he was at the age of
50. His two surviving daughters over yonder. This is typical of, of a Catholic house I suppose,
you'd have all of the saints on the window, Thomas More, God rest his soul. But what I'm here
for is a bit of the history of the house itself it was only lived in for about a hundred years you
know because it belonged to other estates, grander houses, Coughton Court and all of these. This is
lovely, but there's an interesting bit for me. There's a lot of this house missing, there's
half of the house missing apparently there were 32 hearths in the original house
but there's, I think there's only 14 now, so it shows you the massive side of the house that
was demolished. This house simply wasn't used and people say it was the hearth tax or the window
tax, they decided to knock half the house down, so there would have been lots more rooms
like this standing. But it's up this corner. There used to be oak paneling all around this
house original oak paneling but it's been replaced behind the paneling up yonder where they've left
it exposed you can see Elizabethan wall painting. As we go through the house we will
see more and more Elizabethan artwork. Now we're in the Mermaid Passage, quite
something, you have a look straight ahead. This whole area is covered with
Elizabethan paintings on the walls. It's absolutely incredible there's a mermaid here, it's really hard to see but her tail comes
around and there's a man actually riding side saddle on her tail. There is a sword,
this must have been absolutely splendid. Look at that face there just staring out over
the years. Every single inch of all of these walls would have been covered in these murals,
these paintings. You can see everywhere you look there is still the ghost of the Elizabethan
past. And then to top it all this Newel Staircase it was decorated from underneath and I've never
seen one like it anywhere else where they've decorated all of the underneath. In the day this
must have been so bright, so beautiful to walk up. So we're going to go into a little tiny room
which was possibly Humphrey Packington's closet, his office, but it's known as Dr Dodd's
Library. It's a book room, let's have a look. Something that amazes me about these
places look at the carpenter's marks. So those marks there match those marks yeah. Everywhere you go there's
the marks and they all match. This is putting my fingers into the work of
carpenters from hundreds of years ago. I just love it. Now this room holds a secret, so
let's pan around and see if you can spot, there is a hidey hole, a priest hide in
here. Now the room was paneled on all three walls and there was a book cupboard
here with doors that opened outwards, and I'm gonna go up these steps,
maybe surprise you a little. All the paneling on all of these
walls, but there is a hide and you know 1894 it was actually discovered by accident. This
house was empty then I understand and there was a young lad rummaging around. The other side of
this wall there is a cupboard and he noticed there were some loose bricks but when he looked
through the gap he noticed there was some, a stool or something, so he came around here
he took the loose panel off the wall and lo and behold a priest hide,
and this is quite incredible. So the window on the left there is the back of
the cupboard where the little boy removed some bricks and then saw inside the stool in the
corner. He had discovered the priest hide. Err, we tried to get me in there but unfortunately
I don't fit. I am too broad of chest, my archer muscles, or was it the donuts that
I like nowadays? But in fact I wouldn't fit. Now if you look at this beam it would have fitted
exactly the mortar would have been shaped so that when this was closed locked from the inside so
it's solid. You wouldn't have been able to move it and of course it had panels on the outside anyway.
You see it's understood that this was one of the priest hides built by a chap called Nicholas Owen
who was an illusionist in his own right and in fact to this very day he is the patron saint of
illusionists, so I understand. But what he was, was a master carpenter who could change the
shape of the house on the inside and you wouldn't realize that just behind here there was a priest
hide, where a priest would be secure. Imagine that, so you look into a cupboard and it finishes
but you don't know that there is actually a room a complete room behind it. He was a master of his
trade. Captured, oh well he didn't, he wasn't captured, he surrendered. There was a search
at a house 1606 and he was tortured to death in the Tower of London. He would not let any
of his secrets or any names of co-conspirators, because what it was the Elizabethan Age, the grate
between the Catholic and the Protestant Church. It had become illegal to hide a Catholic priest in
England and that's punishable by death and also the it became illegal to hold Catholic Mass,
such was the religious hatred and the religious intolerance, but that's a whole different
subject. We're here to look at the house. Now have a look in here I'm inside a cupboard.
This is the cupboard where the boy found the loose bricks and when he looked through he saw
the stool inside the priest hide. Have a look. You can just about see the entrance
and if a slim enough priest can slide in he's got plenty of room to sit and try
to relax while the house would be searched. We're in the private chapel here, the family
chapel if you like, but it's a bedroom. The decoration on all of the walls, it's typical
pomegranates that kind of thing of a chapel. They were on the ceilings and on the walls,
they would have been very vibrant in their day. Then this piece that they've managed to
preserve on the ceiling just, just goes to show how bright these places were. They weren't austere
like the, the later Protestant churches all painted white but we had a question so this room
you have a priest is giving Mass. In the nursery next door you know the housing staff could listen
to the mass, but this is for the family here. But you'll notice the way the windows are situated
we've got North and South, they're very high up so nobody could actually see the priest giving Mass.
Now if there was a problem he has to escape, but first of all they've got to get rid of all of the
sacraments and we have a hide, So you're alerted, the persuivants are coming, they're going to
search the house. The priest must hide. Meanwhile you've got to get rid of all of the sacraments,
so you have a hide. I know where the key is. You simply open this up, put all of the
sacraments in there, lower it back down. There's a search people are coming you've been
warned you open the hide, all of the vestments all of the sacraments everything is placed in
the hide, the floorboards are down but this is just a cupboard a sideboard of some kind. So once everything is put away you slide this
across in the corner, perfect. But you still have a priest. OMG you've got to get rid of the
priest. They had a way in to the ceiling here, he could then get up and the original part
of the house had two levels in the loft, so he could go all the way from one side of
the house to the other and then find his way down to escape. This whole business was designed
so that they could continue to be Catholics. So they could take care of their priests, because
this wasn't just a place where priests hid,, there's more to it than that, but let's just
have a look in the nursery while we're here. So although they call this the nursery, it
was the community or the communal chapel where people could come from the estate to
practice their religion their Catholicism. This area Harvington around here was a
real stronghold for the Catholics during the reign of Elizabeth the first. Now
either we have Catholic vestments and things on display but there is something
special something I've never seen before. This rosary, now this was found under the
floorboards in one of the priest rooms. It's made out of hollywood, holly and dates to the early
17th century, I find that lovely, quite fantastic. This is Humphrey Parkinson's private chapel, now
this is a quite a high status man was Humphrey so he's got friends in high places people who used
to be Catholics converted to Protestantism all of that kind of stuff, but what makes this quite
lovely is he could come here and he could worship, have his Chapel providing he went to
the Anglican Church I think it's four times a year. But what's interesting, these
original paintings on the wall they are tears and droplets these are the tears of Christ
and the droplets of the blood of Christ. So we've just come out of the small chapel and
what's really interesting is a recent discovery by the manager here, Phil. This is, it's so faint
there's the headdress, there is the face, the lips, the nose and then the Royal scepter
coming down. We believe this is a drawing of none other than Queen Elizabeth the first herself and
what the perfect place to put it because although Humphrey was a loyal Catholic he was
also loyal to the crown of England. So these are the priest chambers, set
of three rooms this one obviously for the house priest because it's quite
wonderful. Beautiful Elizabethan bed. The priests were Seminary. You had your
outside priest who roamed the countryside, your house priest. This was a place where the
priest would gather it's a place of learning for the local people but also where priests could meet
and exchange information about where they're going to go next what they're going to get up to so they
could stay in this house. This was a central part for those kinds of priests. Interestingly it was
the Jesuit priests that were hunted the worst, your Seminary they weren't quite so frowned
upon. As we go through you've got a lesser room and a place to escape. You have to watch the
floorboards here all original, so once again higgledy-piggledy. As we go into the final
priest room, I'll show you how they would escape. This is The Great Escape. The
fire. But it's not a fireplace if you look there's a mirror and it will show
you that there is a passageway up the chimney, into the loft. It's a one-way escape passage. Just to let you know all of this is actually not soot it's actually painted on to
make it look like a working fireplace. So we're at the top of the grand staircase
and it's quite magnificent, but this isn't the original. The original, believed to have been
built by Nicholas Owen, he had to have a project that will take some time so he could rearrange the
house for all of the priest hides to be installed, but this is a replica. The original was removed
by the family the Throckmortons and is now in the house of Coughton Court, so if you want to go and
see it, it's not far from here. But he left behind something, the last secret that I'm going to
show you and I love this let me just park me hat. It's obviously what it was built for. You're
walking up the steps, have a look at this. It is actually just a hidey hole, because there used
to be a complete brick piece that stood there. If you open this originally it
would just have the house valuables. You had to remove the brick panel from there to
then slide in and then lock the panel in place, from the inside. And I can tell you it's not
comfortable sitting here holding this up, so if you were a persuivant or his men and you're
looking at this here with the family valuables in it, trying to hold up this heavy stairs, all you
would see is that brick back and the valuables. So if anybody says to you 'Is there anything?
Have you found anything?' 'Only the valuable hide sir'. You would not see the priest hide behind
and what I find interesting about these priest hides is they're all locked from the inside
so if you push pull you're not going to move anything it was all barred from the inside. It
looked perfect. Nicholas Owen what a carpenter, what a believer, paid for it with his life. One
thing I find fascinating about Harvington Hall is even though it is this house of secrets it has
all these priest hides, there are no records of it ever being searched and yet houses nearby were
regularly searched, and this may be down to the types of priests that frequented this house,
Seminary. These priests were not regarded as a threat. In contrast to Harvington Hall you
have Hindlip House just down the road that had 11 priests hides but those were for Jesuit
priests, the big threat. Now in 1606 that house was searched. Unfortunately locked inside was
the carpenter Nicholas Owen. After four days of searching he surrendered himself together with a
servant he would be tortured to death in the Tower of London, never revealed any of his secrets or
any of the people he worked with but there were four Jesuit priests were discovered, I believe
about eight days into the search. Those poor souls would have been hung drawn and quartered. This
is indeed a bloody period of our English history. Well I hope you enjoyed our little visit at
Harvington Hall our video there. This place is brilliant and there's always lots going on. So
if you're looking for a place to visit just near Bromsgrove in the Midlands here, just outside of
the city of Birmingham, it is the perfect place to come and they do a decent cup of coffee and
a pasty to boot. But this place holds more than just a visitor interest for me, I used to come
here shoot my longbow with my pals Cedric, Johnny and a really good friend Alan Harvey, they're all
gone. Time marches on, so coming here it's a bit of a trip down memory lane. But before I go, let's
give a shout out to a couple of my uh Patreon members. We've got Derek Schultz and Christopher
Varner, hey guys thanks a million. Bye for now.
