Sunday, June 15

Moseley Old Hall

Originally an Elizabethan farmhouse but with Victorian modifications, Moseley Old Hall's main claim to fame is as one of the properties that sheltered the retreating King Charles II during the English Civil War. Nowadays owned and preserved by the National Trust, it provides a fascinating insight into that daring royal escape as well as offering a sense of what life was like for those of the Catholic faith during the 17th century...

- Northicote Owl -
Despite living on its Bushbury doorstep for the best part of thirty years, Moseley Old Hall is not a property I'd really visited much so the prospect of properly exploring it is most exciting. The allotted day is Saturday 14th June so I make my way across courtesy of the number 3 bus to Vine Island, reacquainting myself with some very familiar haunts en route. Bee Lane Playing Fields and Northwood Park resonate with childhood memories then I relish the chance to fully investigate more of the new Hampton Park estate where Northicote School once stood. One landscaped community garden patch has become the permanent home of the school's much-loved concrete owl emblem, a feature saved when the wider site was demolished. How many local residents remember having that watching over them when the school was operational?

- It must be down here then... -
Carisbrooke Gardens and Cavalier Circus precede the Moseley Parklands where Westering Parkway has all manner of imaginatively-named cul-de-sacs - one wonders what folks get up to on Wealden Hatch or Bettany Glade, certainly not your typical Wolverhampton street titles. Emerging onto Northycote Lane I follow the brown tourist signs towards Moseley itself, feeling ever further removed from the urban sprawl once narrow lanes and tall hedges take over. I've just about crossed into South Staffordshire when a left turn puts me on the hall's single track driveway - I can hear the faint strains of the M54 motorway not too far distant but otherwise I could be a whole world away from my usual gritty West Midlands settings...

- Moseley Old Hall Frontage -
Back in the 1650s this lane would have formed the main route between Wolverhampton and Cannock, with Moseley Old Hall being one of its most notable residences. First constructed in half-timbered fashion for the merchant Henry Pitt, it would go on to become home to various generations of the Whitgreave family, descendants of whom owned the house until the 1920s. Once my Moseley accomplice Emily arrives, we check out the reception area with its well-stocked bookshop and also have a mooch around the Cow Shed where a Saturday crafts activity is being set up - design your own cow apparently! We're booked onto a guided tour come half past twelve which gives us an hour to explore the grounds beforehand.

- Your Quoits Champion -
One of Moseley's treasured gems is the Knot Garden which was installed in 1962 and based on the 17th century designs laid out by the Reverend Walter Stonehouse at Darnfield. The principle is to have aromatic herbs and shrubs set out intricately within a rectangular frame; clipped trees and little box hedges are the impressive result, it must be a labour of love to keep everything so neat! Just across from here is the orchard, used to grow a variety of heritage species of apples and pears including one called 'Tettenhall Dick'; the fruit trees provide our backdrop to a game of Tudor Quoits where Emily proves remarkably adept at landing rope rings on or near her peg target. I put her beginner's success down to expert tuition from a dapper volunteer in period costume, whereas I was frankly hopeless! 

- King Charles's Hiding Place -
The hour of the tour approacheth so we congregate by the heavily studded oak door through which King Charles gained entry to the building back in 1651, ushered here by the Pendrill family from Chillington having eluded Parliamentary forces at Boscobel. The current house would likely not be very recognisable to Charles although some Elizabeth features survive, encased within the later Victorian brickwork. Our guide Sue has a wealth of knowledge and really brings the tale vividly to mind, explaining about the brewhouse kitchen room before leading us upstairs to reveal a four poster bed the King would once have slept in. A hidden priesthole beside the chimneystack made for a claustrophobic hideaway and it would not have been pleasant in the slightest, what with pots of stale urine on hand to trick any tracker dogs from sniffing the King's scent. The ploy worked because Charles was not discovered here.

- Chapel in the Attic -
Elsewhere during the hour-long tour we learn more about the Whitgreave family and other notable personalities who aided the King's escape, such as Jane Lane from Bentley Hall. A further bedchamber would have been where Thomas Whitgreave held secret discussions with Charles while in the attic is a clandestine chapel used for Catholic congregations, although it would have been necessary to have lookouts and disperse very quickly because such worship was illegal at the time. Charles stayed here from 8th to 10th September 1651, plotting out the next stages of his passage to France, and he would go on to reward those who helped him once restored to the throne from 1660 onwards. At the conclusion of the talk, we decamp to the tearooms for an ever-essential slice of cake before undertaking a further circuit of the surrounding woodland; an elaborate tree hide is especially popular with visiting children.

- Northycote Farm Chickens -
Our final Moseley Old Hall act is to raid the on-site bookshop where Bookworm Bygrave lives up to her nickname by selecting a handful of titles to take home - I'm assured she was very restrained in not buying most of the shop! Northycote Farm is only a matter of minutes away so we head there to admire the herb garden, outhouse privy and an array of poultry birds with rather fine feathers. The farm was owned by the Underhill family with links to Moseley Court, and the surrounding country parkland makes for lovely walking opportunities out towards Waterhead Brook and Devils Elbow. With the predicted thunderstorms leaving us alone, it turned out to be a pretty perfect day all round. Cheers!

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