of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
a narrow shaft in the wall.

Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
carried out.

[Footnote 1: See _Notes and Queries_, September, 1855.]

[Illustration: BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]

[Illustration: PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE]

Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.

Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
an upper room.

The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
a subterranean