Dating back to the 13th century, Baddesley Clinton, situated in Warwickshire, England, has been a silent observer of history. The house was owned by the Ferrers family, who remained Roman Catholic recusants after the Reformation. They sheltered Catholic priests, who were under threat of a death sentence if discovered, and made special arrangements to hide and protect them.
The house contains several priest holes and secret passages built to hide people during searches by the authorities. One such priest hole is in the roof and is reputed to hold six people. A second is hidden in an old privy. Fugitives were able to slide down a rope from the first floor through the old garderobe shaft into the house's sewers. A third space off the Moat Room is a small room with a door hidden in the wood panelling, though there is no real evidence that this is a hide.
These hides are said to have been built by Saint Nicholas Owen, a lay-brother of the Jesuits who constructed many masterful hides before being caught and tortured to death by the Protestant English government. The priest holes came into use at least once in 1591 when a conference of Jesuit priests was raided by local authorities, yet the hides proved effective as no-one was caught.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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