Huddington Court

The plans of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 were conceived in Huddington Court. Today there are portraits of Robert Catesby 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 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 Wintour 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.

List entry Number: 1081215 