Elizabethan Priest-Holes: V—The North

The choice of houses for this fifth article was not easy. In the first of the series I argued that the building of priest-holes took place in three stages, divided roughly by the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, the events which mark the beginning and the end of Nicholas Owen’s work. In the second, I discussed a group of hides from the early period, at Ufton, Mapledurham and Compton Wynyates. In the third and fourth I dealt with two groups of houses where there is evidence of Owen’s work: in East Anglia at Oxburgh, Braddocks and Sawston, and in Warwickshire and Worcestershire at Baddesley Clinton, Hindlip and Harvington. In the sixth (and last) article I shall deal with the most fully documented hides of the third period, namely those used by Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. But with such a wealth of material to draw on, which houses should go into the remaining article on the middle period ?The third and fourth articles were illustrations of the work of two of the Jesuits who met at Baddesley Clinton in October 1591: John Gerard in East Anglia and Edward Oldcorne in Worcestershire. Even to complete the picture for these two priests would require another three articles. No county is richer in hiding-places than Worcestershire and the neighbouring parts of Warwickshire, and Oldcorne’s work extended much further afield, into Herefordshire and even into Wales.