Huddington Court
Encyclopedia
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, six miles east of Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
. It is surrounded by a moat with a bridge and is painted white on the outside with prominent black beams on all walls. It has been described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as 'the most picturesque house in Worcestershire'. Thomas Wintour
Thomas Wintour
Robert Wintour and Thomas Wintour , also spelt Winter, were members of the Gunpowder Plot, a failed conspiracy to assassinate King James I. Both were related to other conspirators, such as their cousin, Robert Catesby, and a half-brother, John Wintour, also joined them following the plot's failure...
(or Winter) and his brother Robert Wintour grew up in the house. The house is a private residence and is not open to the public.
The Gunpowder Plot
The plans of the Gunpowder PlotGunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.The plan was to blow up the House of...
to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 were conceived in Huddington Court. Today there are portraits of Robert Catesby
Robert Catesby
Robert Catesby , was the leader of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605....
and other plotters around the house.
Three priest holes are in the building. The first is on the ground floor where a floorboard can be removed in what is now the study to reveal a spiral staircase down to a fairly large sized room. The room itself is bare and shabby, but it was only meant for hiding. It was the most easily accessible room, but also the easiest for the authorities to find.
The second secret room is found on the third and top floor. In the furthest room of the house, now a bedroom, a part of the wall can be removed. This part of the wall was originally a set of bricks which came out as a whole, but it is now a plank of wood made to look like the wall behind it. The hole revealed is big enough for a man to crawl through. This room is small and can hide four men but beams across the middle of the room make it uncomfortable as there is not room to stand.
Following the arrest of Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes , also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish in the Low Countries, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.Fawkes was born and educated in York...
some of the plotters fled to Huddington Court and hid in a third secret room. The search party found the first two rooms, but failed to discover the third that can only be accessed from the room above through a disguised panel in the wall which can be removed and replaced from the other side. This room has rough ground and is now unsafe to enter.
Etched into the glass in the main bedroom of the house are the words "Passed cark, passed care", reputedly carved by Lady Winter with her diamond ring while her husband hid in the woods around the house before his capture. The pane is protected by a metal cage.