KINGFISHER PROBUS VISIT - HARVINGTON HALL Wednesday 20th June 2018

Situated off the Bromsgrove to Kidderminster Road, past the bend at Chaddesley Corbett, down a lane on your right. Clearly marked ….look for signpost for Harvington Hall on your left . We arrive and meet at 11.45am where we can enjoy lunch in the Restaurant. The group will meet and split into two parts, at 1.00pm, each having their own guide who will start their tours at opposite ends of the house.

The priest-hides were built in the time of Humphrey Pakington, at the end of the 16th Century, when it was high treason for a Catholic priest to be in . The hiding places at Harvington are the finest surviving series in England, and four of them, all sited round the Great Staircase, show the trademarks of the master builder of such places, , who was at work from 1588 onwards. Owen was servant to Fr. , the Jesuit superior in England, who during the 1590s built up a network of houses throughout the country to which incoming priests could be directed, and where they could find disguises, Chapels and Priest Holes. The centre of this operation for Worcestershire and the Welsh Marches was Hindlip House, the home of Humphrey’s friend Thomas Habington, where the Jesuit arrived in 1590. It was there that Garnet, Owen and Oldcorne were all captured in 1606, just after the . Owen was starved out of one of his own hides on the fourth day of a twelve day search, during which he and a companion Ralph Ashley had nothing to eat but one apple between them. He died under torture in the Tower...... Garnet, Oldcorne and Ashley were all hanged, drawn and quartered. Although Hindlip House was demolished in 1814, descriptions of the hides there show a striking similarity to those that survive at Harvington …...... That is unlikely to be an accident.

Tear off here ------

BOOKING FORM

Please can I have your booking forms with cheque, either at our May meeting, or by June 1st at the very latest. Please pay by cheque ONLY so that record keeping is kept to a minimum, and I am not tempted to invest your hard earned groats at the local pub! This will make my job so much easier. Pete (01527) 541551 [email protected]

Name: ______Phone Number: ______Number of Places @ £ TBA each ______Cheques payable to Kingfisher Probus Club Please Cross section of the West side of the Hall, showing the hiding places probably by Nicholas Owen, centred around the Great Staircase. The false fireplace in the Marble Room led to two hides in the attics (not open to the public). ______Our next proposed visit in September will be to the AEROSPACE BRISTOL MUSEUM Located on the historic Filton Airfield, Aerospace Bristol tells a fascinating story of ordinary people achieving extraordinary things, with amazing aerospace exhibits – including aeroplanes, helicopters, missiles, satellites and more On 7th February 2017, Aerospace Bristol welcomed Concorde Alpha Foxtrot - the last Concorde built and the last to fly, came to her new purpose-built home. The complex move was conducted with the greatest care by engineers from British Airways and Airbus, who towed the iconic aircraft across Filton Airfield and up a ramp into the new purpose-built hangar at Aerospace Bristol. ______