Latest news with #OxburghHall
BBC News
19-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Urgent repairs under way at 15th Century Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk
An urgent conservation project is under way to preserve a manor house built more than 500 years levels in the moat at Oxburgh Hall, near Swaffham in Norfolk, became unusually low due to leaks last year and then a sinkhole appeared on a lawn.A watertight enclosure called a cofferdam has been installed to allow contractors to repair the moat as part of work costing £196, Baldwin from the National Trust said it was a "delicate balancing act" to keep water levels high enough to protect the building's walls without flooding the gardens. "If the water drops too low, the brickwork is exposed, which has an impact on the structural integrity of the hall itself," she said. Workers are expected to remain at the site until the end of June and will also repair the sluice and moat is fed via an underground channel from the River Gadder, with culverts allowing water in and out. The sluice gate controls the amount of water draining out of the moat and back to the Gadder. The Oxburgh Estate is owned by the National Trust but has been the family home of the Bedingfelds for more than 500 years, and they still live in private apartments at the hall. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Telegraph
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Sacred Mysteries: The carpenter who made secret hides for hunted priests
In 1585 a law made it treasonable for Jesuits or priests ordained abroad to be in England. By the end of 1586 only 130 of the 300 priests who had returned to England from seminaries abroad were still at liberty. Some died in prison, 33 had been martyred, 50 were in prison and about 60 had been banished or had fled abroad before being discovered. Yet the 'Mission' to England was not wiped out. By 1596, 300 priests were labouring in England, and by 1610 as many as 400. What made the difference was the level-headedness of Father Henry Garnet (who came back to England in 1586 and worked for 18 years as Jesuit superior before his execution), and the work of Nicholas Owen, a layman and carpenter, who built priest holes. Priest holes or hides allowed priests on the Mission to elude the government pursuivants. They were also hiding places for the trappings of Mass – chalices, patens, vestments, missals – that pursuivants looked out for. Priests were often given shelter in the large houses of determined Catholics called recusants because they refused to attend state-sponsored services in the parish church. Humphrey Pakington of Harvington, for example, paid fines of £20 a month (£4,000 in today's money) for failing to attend church. Examples of Owen's perhaps 200 hides can be seen at Harvington and at Oxburgh Hall or Huddington Court. The deadly cat-and-mouse game reminds me of dissidents under Stalinism or those who courageously hid Jews under Nazi rule. Nicholas Owen lived as a child in the 1560s near the Castle in Oxford, and was apprenticed as a joiner. Two brothers, John and Walter, left to train as priests at Douai College in France. The youngest, Henry, became a printer and, astonishingly, set up a clandestine press in the Clink prison when he was held there. Europe was shocked (as it had been in 1170 at Thomas Becket's murder) by the execution of the paradigm of a scholar, Edmund Campion, in 1581. While the fortitude of the returned priests was remarkable, I think the atmosphere of distrust and betrayal was bad for the persecuted minority and for the persecutors. Many brave protectors of priests were women, not least the daughters of Lord Vaux, Anne and Eleanor (who was impressed by Campion, her brother's tutor). The Vaux sisters leased Baddesley Clinton, a lovely moated house near Warwick. There in 1589, Nicholas Owen made hides for priests and Mass-gear and built escape routes. The house was invaluable for priests to make religious retreats. 'We have sung our songs in a strange land,' wrote Robert Southwell of a meeting in 1590. 'In this desert we have sucked honey from the rock.' He was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1595. Meanwhile, Owen's craftsmanship was tested by a dawn raid by armed pursuivants on Baddesley Clinton on October 18 1591. In Owen's hides hid Henry Garnet, Robert Southwell, John Gerard, Edward Oldcorne and Thomas Stanney. The carpenter saved their lives that day. It wasn't till 1606 that luck ran out for Owen (by then a Jesuit lay brother). Concealed with Ralph Ashley (Edward Oldcorne's servant) in a hide he'd built at Hindlip Hall, they spent four days with only one apple to eat. They were caught breaking cover. Owen, who had a hernia, died horribly under torture. He was declared a saint in 1970. His story is now told grippingly and with historical judgment in the 86 pages of Nicholas Owen by Fr Gerard Skinner.
