A Day Out in Warwickshire....

Over breakfast, we decided the weather was too bleak for climbing the hills, another National Trust visit was more appealing. Infact, we visited two estates.

On the way, we passed through a very attractive small town, Henley-In-Arden, with a very unusual mile-long High Street, of similar character buildings.

The first estate we visited was Packwood House. They were offering guided tours around the house. We chose the 1.30 pm tour and had some time to kill so grabbed a cuppa and wandered around the grounds. Their Yew Garden looked very interesting but it didn't appear to be open to the public or maybe there was another tour.

Our tour of the house was really interesting. I could quite easily imagine myself living there, it was homely not too grand, even though Queen Mary had taken tea there. 

The house was built between 1556 and 1560 and extended and modernised over the centuries. 

When in 1925, Baron Ash inherited the estate. He reinvented the house and spent the next two decades returning the house to its original Tudor character. He would seek out properties of similar character that were to be demolished and recycled what he could. It sounds like he was a perfectionist with an eye for detail. 

Baron created an amazing 'Barn conversion' . Today, there are an abundance of 'Barn conversions'  but Baron probably created the first. 

He converted the great barn into a Tudor- style hall with 'sprung flooring' for dancing and this was connected to the house by the addition of a Long Gallery.

Sorry, we didn't take any pics but we did at our next visit down the road, 

to Baddesley Clinton. A house with a moat and secret hiding places.

Baddesley Clinton was home to the Ferrers family for 500 years

Who murdered the priest in the library? 

Much of the house was built by Henry Ferrers in the late 1500's

The house was a sanctuary for not only the family but also for persecuted Catholics who were hidden from priest hunters in secret hiding places during the 1590's.

By the end of the 1600's the estate was in decline, although the house passed from father to son for 12 generations,  it wasn't until Marmion Ferrers came to Baddesley in the 1860's  that it's fortunes picked up. With his wife Rebecca, his friend Edward Dering and his wife Lady Georgiana, the house became a retreat again, this time for two couples, known as the Quartet, who devoted their time to painting, writing and restoring the house. 

There is a story that a staff member of the N.T. told us with a twinkle in his eye: 

Lady Georgiana was known as Lady Chatterton before her 2nd marriage to Edward Dering, who was 20 years her junior. 

It is said, of their match, that he called to pay his addresses to Lady Chatterton's niece, Rebecca, who was living with her. The elderly lady did not hear him correctly and accepted the proposal which she thought he had made her. Edward was too polite to disabuse her and so they were married.

Edward did finally marry Rebecca, following Marmion Ferrer's death in 1884.  

Oh yes, John Brome purchased the house from the Clinton family in 1438. His son, Nicholas Brome murdered the parish priest, in the library.  He caught the priest flirting with his wife in the library in about 1500. 

Following Nicholas's death in 1517, his elder daughter Constantia, became the wife of Sir Edward Ferrers and had Baddesley Clinton as her dower or legacy and from that date the family of Ferrers owned Baddesley until 1940.