Hindlip Hall

Geobox|stately home
name = Hindlip Hall
category =stately home

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image_caption = the hall today


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country = England
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region = Midlands
district = Worcestershire
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established =1575 (rebuilt. c. 1820)
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owner = in the care of the West Mercia Police
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visitation =adjacent church ia accessible to the public
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website =http://www.westmercia.police.uk/aboutus/hq.htm
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Hindlip Hall is in Worcestershire. The first major hall was built before 1575. It played a significant role in both the Babington and the Gunpowder plots (where it hid four people in priest holes, who were eventually executed). It was Humphrey Littleton who told the authorities that Edward Oldcorne was hiding here after he had been heard a mass at Hindlip Hall. [http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/people/humphrey.htm Humphrey Littleton] , gunpowder-plot.org, accessed 7 July 2008] Four people were executed and the owner at that time only just escaped execution due to the intercession of Lord Monteagle. Since that time it was owned by a poet and lastly as a girl's school before it was rebuilt by Lord Southwell in 1820. The Hall was designated as a potential home for the war cabinet in 1940. It is now home to the West Mercia police headquarters.

History

The house was originally built before 1575 in a brick construction with towers and large windows by John Habington, an official in the court of Elizabeth I. John, his wife Catherine, and his three children Edward, Thomas and Dorothy were all Catholic Recusants. After their father's death in 1582, Edward and Thomas were involved in the Babington plot which hoped to put a catholic queen on the throne. Edward was beheaded but Thomas was shown mercy due to his youth. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2005/11/02/hindlip_gunpowder_plot_feature.shtml Hindlip's Gunpowder Plot secrets] , BBC, About worcestershire]

Priest holes

After imprisonment, Thomas and his wife, Mary, retired to Hindlip Hall, which they had adapted as a refuge with priest holes constructed for catholic priests including ironically those by Nicholas Owen. Mary was the sister-in-law of Lord Monteagle.

When the Gunpowder plot was discovered, as a result of Lord Monteagle's letter, the Jesuit priest Edward Oldcorne was at Hindlip. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OaqWAEry-wkC&pg=PA55&dq=%22Edward+Oldcorne%22+jesuit&lr=&ei=WKxuSPChEJjSigGK4ZUV&sig=ACfU3U0gAVzV9akH-TH-U-r8Wu2rEoG5Nw Lives of the Saints] By Alban Butler, Peter Doyle, ISBN:0860122530] Oldcome recounted, under interrogation, that on the 8 November 1605 there arrived Oswald Tesimond from Robert Wintour's who told Mr (H)Abington and himself that "he brought them the worst news that they had ever heard, and they were all undone." Tesimond said that certain people had intended to blow up the parliament house but they had been discovered a few days before. [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uw8CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA285&dq=%22Edward+Oldcorne%22&ei=YppwSMf_ApW-jgGfjvWoCQ&client=firefox-a Criminal Trials] by David Jardine, 1846, accessed 6 July 2008] In December, Oldcorne was joined by Nicholas Owen, Henry Garnet and Ralph Ashley who were hiding because they were also under suspicion of involvement. The hall was searched on 20 January 1606 but no one was discovered and Abington denied that there was anyone hiding. [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13918/13918-h/13918-h.htm#CHAPTER%20II Secret Chambers anf Hiding Places] , Allan Fea] . The four were not discovered even though Garnet and Oldcorne were in one hiding place whilst the two lay brothers were in another. However the house continued to be searched for the next twelve days. A document written at the time records they "found two cunning and very artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious places."

There were in fact eleven hiding places discovered. Two of the jesuits came out after a few days but Oldcorne and Garnet survived for eight days before they surrendered.

Oldcorne and Garnet [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Ven._Edward_Oldcorne Venerable Edward Oldcorne in the Catholic Encyclopedia] , in Wikisource, accessed 4 July 2008] were arrested by Sir Henry Bromley and held briefly at the castle at Holt before being taken to the Tower of London en route to execution in Worcester.

Thomas was again arrested, and sentenced, but spared. He spent the rest of his life writing. It is said in several sources that he was not allowed outside the county, but there is evidence that this is unlikely.

After the plot

Thomas's son, William Habington, was a minor poet and his son, Thomas, died without a natural heir and left the hall to Sir William Compton.

The Hall went through a number of uses including about twenty five years as a girl's school. The old hall was demolished in 1820. [http://www.westmercia.police.uk/aboutus/hq.htm West Mercia Police] accessed 7 July 2008]

The new hall was built by Lord Southwell. In the 19th century the hall was bought by the Burton-on-Trent brewer, Henry Allsop, who became the first Lord Hindlip. The house and gardens continued to be improved. In 1887 Lord Hindlip had a new six acre lake created and the old one was filled in and 4,000 fish were taken out. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9807EFDC1238E533A2575AC0A96F9C94669FD7CF&oref=slogin Lord Hindlip's new lake] , New York Times, 9 September 1887 accessed 7 July 2008] ]

1940

During the Second World War it was taken over by the Ministry of Works. There were emergency plans drawn up to move the war cabinet to Hindlip Hall if required, with the Prime Minister's office also based nearby. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1507428/A-Brideshead-hideaway-for-princesses-at-war.html A Brideshead hideaway for princesses at war] , Ben Fenton, Daily Telegraph, 10 January 2006 accessed 7 July 2008] After the war it came into the ownership of Worcestershire County Council.

Today

Today the Hall is the West Mercia Constabulary police headquarters. It is close to junction six of the M5 motorway. The church of St. James is no longer supported by the Church of England (since 1997), but is now the church for the constabulary. [http://www.worcesterbmsgh.co.uk/Hindlip.html Genealogy and Heraldry] accessed 7 July 2008]

ee also

Baron Hindlip

References