You Never Know What's Under the Stairs!

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Woolly says – Dark grey clouds had settled overhead and having adjusted my burpday rosette I kept all of my paws crossed that the heavens wouldn’t send a deluge to ruin my celebrations. I hobbled towards the car and climbed in, with Jo at the wheel and Zoe on the musical entertainment the roads and streets flashed by until we met the country roads where tractors seemed to impede our progress.



My small friend seemed to have injured himself and I wondered why he couldn’t walk properly, unless of course it was a precursor to being carried for the day!



Woolly says – A sharp wind ruffled my fur as I jumped out of the vehicle and onto the grassy parking area, I gave a good hard stare at the clouds in the hope that they would behave, well it always worked for Jo when she was a teacher. The building in front of me was superb, a moated medieval manor house with all manner of chimneys and fine looking brickwork, my tummy quivered in excitement. Harvington Hall originally belonged to the Protestant Pakington family and was constructed by Humphrey Packington, during the 1580’s. Mary Pakington, his daughter, came into possession of the hall upon his death on August 6^th 1531. Mary had become a Catholic upon her marriage to Sir John Yate and given the situation of the time became a huge help in saving priests from the soldiers who were sent far and wide across Britain to banish the catholic religion. The hall became famous for its priest holes that saved many lives. In 1647 it was pillaged by Roundhead troops before the 19th Century saw it stripped of furniture and panelling and left as a shell. The Hall was finally passed by marriage to the Throckmorton family from nearby Coughton Court, until the Archdiocese of Birmingham took over and started to rebuild the dilapidated building.



There is always something exciting about passing over a water filled moat that makes a building so much more like it would have been in it’s prime. I can remember visiting Harvington when in Primary school and it was in part responsible for my life long interest in history, I knew that there were a couple of surprizes for my furry companion to find.



Woolly says – A musty smell greeted my trunk as we entered and as the women headed to the shop to purchase our tickets I trotted straight towards the kitchen, well it had been at least ten minutes since my last snack. The room was filled to overflowing with WWI soldiers which was a bit of a surprize and did make it difficult to actually see the huge fireplaces that would have provided heat and the cooking facilities for the manor house. I sat admiring the pottery that had been salvaged from the moat as I waited for the women to arrive.



Having been told at the entrance that a memorial for those that had lost their lives in the first world war was in place throughout the hall I just hoped that it wouldn’t mean hundreds of people around to step on the mammoth!



Woolly says – We moved into a small hallway to find a large hole in the wall between that and the kitchen, Zoe who had taken responsibility for the audio guide promptly informed me that this was in fact one of the seven priest holes in the building and had proved most successful in hiding those in need as the smell of humans would have been drowned out by the smell of food smells. It wasn’t a huge space and although I would have been quite comfy in it I’m not sure that a fully grown priest would have had much room to sit let alone stand. Next door was the scullery which was filled once again with men and women in clothing from the war making it impossible to actually get through the door, I suppressed a sigh and trotted down a long corridor that led us into the once opulent herb garden, with the wind biting my ears I barely paused before heading back inside and climbing upwards. The wooden staircase was slanted which made climbing tricky especially as I could barely peel my eyes away from the faded decoration that it’s wooden struts still exhibited. As we entered what had once been the bedroom of the lady of the manor the floor sloped even more steeply and I started to feel as though I had over indulged in the mead that would have been drunk in place of water during the Tudor times.



The floors were tricky but the wide oak boards that covered them were beautiful if tricky to navigate. A small four poster bed looked snug inside with its beautiful tapestry drapes that would have kept you warm and cosy at night. Not so the toilet that I found in the corner of the room.



Woolly says – As Jo opened a small door I felt the chill of outside enter the room, but a bit of cold was worth it to see a toilet! A large hole which gave direct access to the moat below would not have made you want to linger on your morning absolutions but it was a brilliant find. Long corridors led us through the upper stories until we arrived in a large hall that looked far to modern for the age of the building. Zoe filled us in on her knowledge gained from the guide and told us that it had been completed in the 1990’s which barely made it a teenager in age, before leading us over to a very small piece of wood that graced a corner of the room explaining that it was the only surviving piece of the original hall. Having fallen over another solider who was busy preparing his rifle, Jo finally asked the question that I was aching to knowthe answer to, ‘Did Harvington hall play a large part during the first world war?’, the man smiled at us as he shook his head and told us that it had played no part at all which left us all scratching our heads.



We are all keen to keep the memories of those lost alive, but it seemed strange to have filled a medieval manor house with a memorial when it had played no part in the war at all and we did feel that it might have fitted in well at a former coaching inn a mere mile away which had provided food and beds for those going to and from the front.



Woolly says – A long corridor led us into a nursery which had what must be the oldest baby walker around, Tudor families had believed in a child walking not crawling which is a similar attitude to Jo when it comes to me! We arrived in what had once been a chapel and admired the original paintings that had survived so much due in the history of the house. One corner was fascinating, the floor appeared to be the same as the rest of the area but lifting a couple of floor boards showed us another hidey hole. Having shuffled along another passageway which held quite a slope we arrived in the bedrooms that visiting priest would have stayed in, it looked as though someone had only just got up but it was the fireplace that intrigued us most as we peered into the chimney which led to two more hiding places, very clever and unlikely to draw any suspicions from the soldiers searching the hall for their quarry. The main staircase led us back to the ground floor, as we trod on each step I checked for more holes and completely missed one until another visitor lifted in the stairs themselves, my best friend Sion and I could have so much fun in this house!



I could imagine the mayhem as they hid from sight before jumping out on unsuspecting people!



Woolly says – The outside air was cold and I raced over to the former brew house to try and keep warm, inside the building was colder than the outside! The lovely old building showed us how barley had been roasted on the floors and told us about the lifestyle of the family and the servants from the earlier days. A small pathway took us to a flight of steps and into another chapel, this one was still used each week and given the temperatures inside I could only hope that the priest kept the services short before his flock froze! With my trunk now numb with cold and a complete lack of feeling in my tail and paws I suggested that it should be time for some burpday cake in the warmth, this seemed to be a very agreeable plan as we found a table in the snug and warm café and tucked into thick homemade soup and creamy chocolate cake. As far as burpday’s go it had made an excellent start to the proceedings.

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