Love Comes to the Castle

AUTHOR’S NOTEPriest Holes, Secret Passages and Sinister Dungeons are to be found in most ancient English Castles and many Ancestral Homes. I remember the first Priest Hole I saw, which was at Madresfield Court, the seat of the Earl Beauchamp. It opened unexpectedly in the centre of the floor where one would never expect to find it. In a secret room in Longleat, the beautiful house belonging to the Marquis of Bath, the bones of one of his ancestors who had mysteriously been bricked up there centuries ago were found when workmen were making alterations to the house. Today, children still find them fascinating and redolent with history and it is intriguing to speculate how many lives have been saved by playing what the children now call ‘Hide and Seek’.