June 9. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



437 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 9. 1855. 



SECRET CHAMBERS IN OLD MANSIONS INTENDED 



FOR priests' hiding-places. 



Few people may be aware of the existence of 

 secret chambers in many of the old mansions of 

 this country, particularly in those erected or occu- 

 pied by the followers of the old faith, which were 

 intended for priests' hiding-places. It is perhaps 

 matter of surprise that an inquiry into their 

 history, number, and comparative points of in- 

 terest, has never engaged the attention of archaeo- 

 logists. An inquiry into the subject might bring 

 to light some interesting historical facts connected 

 with the period when persecution and intolerance 

 rendered such retreats absolutely necessary. The 

 recent discovery of one of these " hiding-places " 

 at Ingatestone Hall, Essex, is a matter of anti- 

 quarian interest, and I hasten to submit a brief 

 notice to your readers, in the hope that my 

 remarks will lead to an investigation of the sub- 

 ject, and elicit valuable information from those 

 whose taste and opportunities enable them to 

 pursue the inquiry. 



Ingatestone Hall is twenty-four miles from Lon- 

 don, and was anciently a grange or summer resi- 

 dence belonging to the Abbey of Barking. It came 

 with the estate into possession of the noble family 

 of the Petres in the time of Henry VIII., and con- 

 tinued to be occupied as their family seat from that 

 period until the middle of the last century, when 

 it was vacated in favour of their new house at 

 Thorndon. The hall, originally built in the form of 

 a double square, had outer and inner courts, with a 

 stately tower gateway to the main building. This 

 gateway and the entire outer court have been 

 destroyed, leaving only three sides of the inner 

 court. Some idea of the extent of the original 

 mansion may be formed when it is known that 

 the mere fragment left affords ample residences 

 for several families ; nor can I refrain from a 

 passing regret that the domestic architecture of 

 the fifteenth century should have sustained so 

 great a loss by these changes. A careful survey 

 of the building, even in its present state, would 

 result in much that is interesting, and a comparison 

 with more perfect examples of the same style 

 and age would furnish evidence to supply the 

 deficiencies. In the absence of such data, I am 

 left to surmise that the present structure (in plan 

 the shape of the lower half of the letter H) formed 

 a portion of the principal part of the house ; that 

 the family and domestics occupied the right or 

 south wing, and the guests and visitors the left or 

 north wing ; the great hall being the centre. The 

 different arrangements of these wing-buildings, 

 and the designs of the respective faqades, are 



worthy of particular notice. On the one hand 

 are smaller apartments with " attics," or rooms in 

 the roof; and on the other, rooms of more stately 

 proportions without " attics." The south front, 

 exposed to the heat of the sun, is broken up by 

 picturesque gabled projections, which give variety 

 of form to the outline, produce deep shadows, and 

 in summer impart an agreeable coolness to the 

 rooms, and at the same time afford convenient 

 appendages to them as boudoirs for the ladies, or 

 apartments for the children. The north presents 

 a nearly unbroken line of front, affording greater 

 scope for state accommodation, and opens to a 

 spacious lawn and garden with gravel walks a 

 quarter of a mile in length. 



Before I describe the " hiding-place," I will 

 digress for a moment, to show how th3 state of the 

 law rendered these secret chambers necessary. 

 History informs us that late in the sixteenth and 

 early in the seventeenth centuries the celebration 

 of the mass in this country was strictly forbidden ; 

 indeed on the discovery of an offender the penalty 

 was death. The Rev. E. Genings was hanged, 

 drawn, and quartered on the 10th December, 

 1591, before the door of Mr. Wells' house in 

 Gray's Inn Fields, for having said mass in a 

 chamber of the said house on the previous 8th of 

 November. Hence the necessity for great privacy. 

 It was illegal to use the chapel ; the priest there- 

 fore celebrated mass secretly " in a chamber," 

 opening from which was a hiding-place to which 

 he could retreat, and where, in a trunk, was kept 

 the vestments, altar-furniture, missal, crucifix, 

 and sacred vessels. In Challoner's Memoirs of 

 Missionary Priests, it is said that 



" Father Holland S. J. was forced to lie concealed all 

 day under so close a confinement that he scarce durst for 

 months together walk out so much as into the garden of 

 the house where he was harboured." 



The " secret chamber " at Ingatestone Hall was 

 entered from a small room on the middle floor 

 over one of the projections of the south front. It 

 is a small room attached to what was probably the 

 host's bed-room, or, at all events, to this day, an 

 apartment rendered exceedingly interesting by 

 some fine tapestry hangings in good preservation. 

 In the south-east corner of this small room, ou 

 taking up a carpet the floor-boards were found to 

 be decayed. The carpenter on removing them 

 found a second layer of boards about a foot lower 

 down. When these were removed, a hole or trap 

 about two feet square, and a twelve-step ladder to 

 descend into a room beneath, were disclosed. The 

 ladder can scarcely be original ; the construction 

 does not carry one back more than a century : the 

 use of the chamber itself goes back to the reign of 

 James I. By comparison with ladders of the 

 sixteenth and even the seventeenth centuries, this 

 is slight-made; the sides only are of oak, notched 

 to receive the steps, which are nailed. The steps 



