Mystery
The House of Secrets
Seven holes in the walls, and every one held a life.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Moated Elizabethan house with seven priest hides
- Legend from
- Elizabethan history
- Tone
- Eerie
The searchers are in the house. Somewhere under the stairs, a priest is holding his breath.
Harvington Hall is a moated Elizabethan house south-east of Kidderminster, in the parish of Chaddesley Corbett. After 1585, when Catholic priests faced death if caught, Humphrey Pakington had the house fitted with secret hiding places, some of them thought to be the work of the master builder of hides, Nicholas Owen. The hall's own site says there are no fewer than seven priest hides here, more than in any other house in England, alongside rare Elizabethan wall paintings. Hunted priests could vanish behind panels, under stairs and beneath floors while searchers went through the rooms. The hall belongs to the Archdiocese of Birmingham.