Rags Corner Cottage Nether Wallop Olde Sepia
by Terri Waters
Title
Rags Corner Cottage Nether Wallop Olde Sepia
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Curiously names Rags Corner in Five Bells Lane, Nether Wallop, Hampshire was built in the 16th century. Formerly three cottages the building is timber-framed with brick and flint infilling with a thatched roof. It has irregular modern casement windows. When the house was renovated a Priest's hole was found under floorboards. An underground tunnel leads from Rags Corner to Berry Court Farm and to the country estate of Garlogs.
Priest hole is the term given to hiding places for priests built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.
It was common that the castles and country houses of England had some precaution in the event of a surprise, such as a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at a moment's notice. However, in the time of legal persecution the number of secret chambers and hiding-places increased in the houses of the old Catholic families. These often took the form of apartments or chapels in secluded parts of the houses, or in the roof space, where Mass could be celebrated with the utmost privacy and safety. Nearby there was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency, but also to provide a place where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture could be stored on short notice.
The effectiveness of priest holes was demonstrated by their success in baffling the exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants" (priest-hunters), described in contemporary accounts of the searches. Search-parties would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to the physical tearing down of panelling and pulling up of floors. It was common for a rigorous search to last a week, and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's thickness of his pursuers. He might be half-starved, cramped, sore with prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe lest the least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where he was immured. Sometimes a priest could die from starvation or by lack of oxygen.
Uploaded
July 28th, 2013
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