Baddesley Clinton – Roving Reporter

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1. 

   R June 28, 2019 at 8:03 am

   Thanks for your video, Philippa and thanks for hosting it, Claire. I am not far from there at the moment on the last day of our holiday. I have been here for twelve days, but have to go home now, sigh. We were just deciding whether to go to one of the other houses and which one. Think might be this one.

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      C June 28, 2019 at 1:46 pm

      Hope you’ve had a wonderful time! Where have you been? I grew up just a couple of miles from Coughton Court.

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      1. 

         R June 29, 2019 at 1:29 am

         Abborts Salford, near Kings Coughton and Salford Priors near Evesham and Alcester. We went there last year as well to the same bed and breakfast. Unfortunately we realised that Baddersley Clinton was further than we thought so went to Havington instead near Kidderminster which was on our way home. Seven priest holes, including one under the stairs! Well Baddersley will have to go on the list for next time. The Throgmortons held Coughton for 900 years and their relatives still live there.
         We also went back to Sudeley and the family were preparing for a birthday party and we were in a bedroom which Charles I stayed in and the younger members of the family just arrived and were hugging everyone, greeting everyone, it was lovely. It’s great to see these homes still lived in and living history being made. The Tower at Coughton is quite high but it was worth the effort, as it was today. The priest holes are in some really ingenious places in those old houses and a tight squeeze. Imagine being in them for days! Nicholas Owen who built most of them was a genius and he was later tortured to death. It brings home the terror of living in such intolerant times. We really are lucky to be living now.

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            R June 30, 2019 at 5:35 pm

            We also visited Warwick Castle and town and saw the Dudley and Beauchamp tombs in the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary including surprise surprise, the most magnificently beautiful and colourful and ostentatious Tudor tomb and surrounding I have ever seen. Robert Dudley and Lettice Knowles was something else. Surmounted on a marble and alabaster blue and red with four pillars they are dressed in robes of state and fine clothes and coronates and in repose. Golden railings with blue and gold arms protect them with their coats of arms. Above them a semi circle with blue and gold and roses and an inscription and a high relief mantle piece with more pillars and alabaster and more blue and golden decorations and then above that their coats of arms and surmounted on top an elaborate bear and staff which is also depicted through the tomb surrounding and base. There is a clock and golden dome on the very top with another bear and staff and inner pillars. The blue and golden is very lavish and there are also floral patterns. Robert and Lettice look very life like. Their robes are red, gold and scarlet.

            There’s also a regal chest tomb for Ambrose Dudley and a small tomb to the son of Robert and Lettice who was nine when he died. There was a small red and black plain brass marker on the floor to William Parr, brother of Queen Katherine Parr, who died at the priory of an illness.

            The famous tomb of Richard Beauchamp with all of the family mourners around it and the golden rings over it which supported a beautiful cloth cover like a hearse was there in the centre as well. Very impressive.

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2. 

   L June 28, 2019 at 7:29 pm

   A nice bit of reporting , Baddesley Clinton seems a fascinating place to visit. There must be lots of priest holes around England. The only priest hole that I’ve seen is in a cafe in Hexam in the Northumberland ,I was totally in Tudor heaven my imagination was running riot as I was having me tea and cake. Baddesley Clinton is another one for my places to visit list.

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