Harvington Hall

Harvington Hall is a moated medieval and Elizabethan manor house in the hamlet of Harvington in the civil parish of Chaddesley Corbett, south-east of Kidderminster in the English county of Worcestershire.

Many of the rooms still have their original Elizabethan wall paintings and the Hall contains the finest series of priest holes anywhere in the country. During the 19th century, it was stripped of furniture and panelling and the shell was left almost derelict but, in 1923, it was bought for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, which restored it and now opens it to the public.

Ownership

The Elizabethan house was built in the 1580s by Humphrey Pakington. On his death, it was inherited by his daughter, Mary, Lady Yate. In 1647, it was pillaged by Roundhead troops. Family letters written from the house refer to politics, London fashions and medical treatment, as well as business matters.

In 1696, the Hall passed to the Throckmortons of Coughton Court in Warwickshire, who owned it until 1923.

Wall paintings

The wall paintings were discovered under whitewash in 1936. The most important of them are the arabesque drawings in the Mermaid Passage and on the back staircase and the figures of the Nine Worthies on the second floor. The Small Chapel is decorated with red and white drops for the blood and water of the Passion and there are also traces of medieval work.

Garden

Humphrey Pakington was a keen gardener himself, and the herb garden in the south-east angle of the moat has recently been restored and replanted . The moat attracts many waterfowl to the island, on the west side of which is the Georgian chapel, built by the Throckmortons in 1743 and now restored with 18th century altar, rails and organ.

On the west side of the cobbled courtyard a gap in the brick and sandstone wall leads into the South Garden. On the far side of a round lawn are the Elizabethan malt-house and the Georgian chapel. Halfway along the wall to the right, another gap leads into the North Garden, an expanse of turf fringed with trees and narrowing to a point at the northernmost tip of the island. There is a path all round the edge of the moat, beginning at the south bridge outside the brew-house and continuing behind the malt-house and the Georgian chapel to the wash-house and damson tree in the North Garden. On the west side the moat broadens out into a small lake with waterfowl and good coarse fishing.

The moat was originally the second of a chain of five pools constructed in the 13th century in a fashion common in the forests of Arden and Feckenham. Apart from the moat itself the topmost (Gallows Pool) and the third (Upper Pond) still hold water. The fourth and fifth (Middle Pond and Harvington Pond) are now only marshy depressions along the brook which flows down to the village and so into the Stour. A few yards north-west of the moat is the sandstone quarry used in the construction of the Hall. In the 18th century it was known as the Dog Kennel, and holes for the rafters of lean-to buildings show that shelters of some kind formerly existed there.

The malt-house, which is of sandstone below and brick and timber above, still has its 18th century malting-kiln, part of the malting-floor of lime-ash and the wooden hoist for raising sacks of barley. It is not , at the moment, open to the public for safety reasons but we hope to restore it and create a new education facility and visitor centre there.

External links

*All this information was directly copied from: http://www.harvingtonhall.com
* [http://addiator.blogspot.com/2008/07/visit-to-harvington-hall.html A visit to harvington Hall]