Sudeley Castle & Gardens

With royal connections spanning a thousand years, Sudeley Castle has played a significant role in the turbulent and changing times of England’s past. Today Sudeley Castle remains the only private castle in England to have a queen buried within the grounds - Queen Katherine Parr, the last and surviving wife of King Henry VIII – who lived and died in the castle.

Henry himself, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth I and Richard III have all played a part in Sudeley’s story. King Charles I found refuge here during the Civil War, when his nephew Prince Rupert established headquarters at the Castle. Following its ‘slighting’ on Cromwell’s orders at the end of the Civil War, Sudeley lay neglected and derelict for nearly 200 years.

Then in 1837, Sudeley was rescued by the wealthy Worcester glove-makers, brothers John and William Dent, who began an ambitious restoration programme, which was continued by their nephew, John Coucher Dent, when he inherited the castle in 1855. His wife, Emma Brocklehurst, threw herself enthusiastically into Sudeley’s restoration, at the same time forging strong links with the nearby town of Winchcombe. It is the results of Emma’s dedication that are so evident in the gardens and exhibitions at Sudeley today.

Sudeley Castle & Gardens is now the home of Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, and her son, daughter, and their families. The family is committed to the continued preservation of the castle, its treasures and the ongoing restoration and regeneration of the gardens.

(Just in case you were wondering `Slighting` is the act of deliberately damaging a high-status building, especially a castle or fortification, which could include its contents and the surrounding area)

Two views of the Castle today

New for 2022 was the Sculpture Safari, a display of camels, crocodiles, elephants and at least one owl, but more apparently dotted around the garden. All made from wood and extremely life-like.

These two looked a bit hungry so needed feeding. 

The Pheasantry at Sudeley houses a collection of 16 rare and endangered species of birds from around the world as part of Sudeley’s programme of breeding and conservation. Wandering around these, some of them were recognizable, but there were some I had never seen, or indeed heard of before.

Fairly common I am sure, but I loved this colourful specimen.

Then, in common with many grand houses of this era, we came to the church. This has quite a history and one very surprising story. 

On the death of Henry VIII, Katherine and her new husband Thomas Seymour arrived at Sudeley Castle in June 1548; the dowager queen had her ladies at her side, along with Thomas’ young ward, Lady Jane Grey. Having been delivered of a girl, who the couple named, Mary, on 31 August, the dowager queen soon showed the deadly signs of the dreaded puerperal fever. Katherine lingered for 5 days as infection ravaged her body, causing multi-organ failure. She died in the early hours of Wednesday, 5 September.

And so, Katherine lay in her grave, encased in a lead coffin, embalmed in cere cloth and undisturbed as the seasons, then the years came and went. Her husband went to his grave, executed for treason a few months after Katherine died; at some point, her infant daughter disappeared from the records and, in time her siblings, friends and family also died.

Nearly 100 years later, and the country was tearing itself apart in its Civil War between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. Sudeley, on the side of the Royalist faction, was slighted in 1643, and subsequently abandoned for around 200 years. The once beautiful castle began to fall into ruin as the walls began to crumble, and ivy grew up around the ruins. 

Agnes Strickland, a nineteenth century antiquarian, who detailed the lives of the Queens of England, gives a unique account of the rediscovery of Katherine’s body some 200 or so years later. Writing around 50 years after it was first rediscovered, she writes that the queen’s body had originally been buried on the north side of the church, near the high altar, within the altar rails. Reading an account of this, in May 1782, a group of ‘lady sightseers’ arrive for a day trip, determined to examine the ruins of the chapel. We can only imagine the moment; making their way through rubble, exploring the derelict walls covered in brambles and ivy, one of them notices a ‘block of alabaster, fixed into the wall of the chapel’.

They enlist help to dig below the panel and discover a lead coffin, buried not a foot beneath the ground. Driven by curiosity, they make two openings in the ‘leaden envelope’, which encases Katherine’s body: one over the face and another over the breast. They find that she was wrapped in layers of cere cloth. They are utterly shocked to discover that the queen’s face, ‘particularly the eyes, [are] in the most perfect state of preservation’. Can you imagine it? It is the find of all finds! However, they are unnerved by their discovery and the smell coming from the cloth, so they order earth to be thrown back immediately into the leaden coffin, without closing the holes they had made. Nevertheless, they had seen enough of the inscription to convince them that it was Queen Katherine.

In the same summer, a ‘Mr. John Lucas’, said to be the person who rented the land on which the chapel stood, again removed the earth from the leaden coffin and ripped up the top of the coffin. He claimed that Katherine’s remains were ‘entire and uncorrupted’, and after making an incision in the layers of cere cloth covering one of the former queen’s arms, found that her flesh was still ‘moist and white’.

For two years, Katherine’s body remained undisturbed. Then, in the spring of 1784, ‘ruffians’ took the corpse out from the coffin and had it ‘irreverently thrown on a heap of rubbish and exposed to public view’. Strickland relates that an old woman, present at the event and who saw the corpse, reported to a friend of Miss Strickland’s that: ‘…the remains of costly burial clothes were on the body, not a shroud but a dress, as in life; shoes were on her feet, but very small and all her proportions extremely delicate; and she particularly noticed that traces of beauty were still perceptible in the countenance, of which the features were at that time perfect…’

Of course, exposure to the air began to accelerate the corpse’s decay. Katherine’s body was rescued and again reinterred, only to be exhumed once more in October 1786 for a formal autopsy. By this time, the face was totally decayed, and the teeth had fallen out. The corpse was described as ‘perfect’, but out of ‘delicacy’, it was not uncovered. The report stated that: ‘The cere cloth consisted of many folds of linen, dripped in wax, tar and gums, and the lead [coffin] fitted exactly to the shape of the body’. It concluded that ‘The queen must have been of low stature, as the lead that enclosed her body was just five feet four inches long’.

For some while, the body lay buried under the floor of the abandoned ruined chapel, which was at one time (as reported by Strickland) used to keep rabbits which ‘make holes and scratch very irreverently around the royal corpse’! Agnes Strickland lamented the lack of a proper resting place and monument for the long-dead queen.

Eventually, however, in 1817, Katherine’s remains were sealed in the stone vault of the Chandos family. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century, the architect George Gilbert Scott was employed to restore the chapel, which was completed and re-dedicated in 1863, some 20 years after Miss Strickland wrote her account. Scott designed a magnificent, canopied tomb with a recumbent effigy of the queen, made of white marble, and carved by John Birnie Philip. Now, a major attraction for the Castle.

 The tomb of Katherine Parr in St Mary`s Church, Sudeley Castle. Quite a story, and well worth going to see.

Something else of interest amongst the many others at Sudeley Castle, was the ruins of a huge Tithe Barn

Now in ruins obviously and built in the second half of the C15. A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing rents and tithes — one tenth of a farm’s produce which was given to the Church. Tithe barns were usually associated with the village church or rectory and independent farmers took their tithes there. The village priests would not have to pay tithes—the purpose of the tithe being their support—and some had their own farms anyway, which are now village greens in some villages.

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Upper and Lower Slaughter, then on to Wych Rissington

The three villages to visit today were in close proximity and just required judicial parking, and some walking - no problem, we thought! We aimed for Lower Slaughter, which was not a huge distance from Stow on the Wold, as our starting point.

The village is built on both banks of the River Eye, a slow-moving stream crossed by two footbridges, which also flows through Upper Slaughter. There is a ford where the river widens in the village and several small stone footbridges join the two sides of the community. While the mill is built of red brick most of the 16th and 17th century homes in the village use Cotswold limestone and are adorned with mullioned windows and often with other embellishments such as projecting gables.

The water fountain in the heart of the village

The river Eye

At the west end of the village there is a 19th-century water mill with an undershot waterwheel and a chimney for additional steam power.

From here we headed across a field to Upper Slaughter, passing this gate with a plaque on it which conjured up some memories.

Memories of past tragedy.

Across the river into Upper Slaughter - love the bridge!

Very narrow, as you can see. 

We made a bee line for St peter`s Church where there has been a church since at least the 12th century, and possible as early as the 11th century. The first rector is recorded in 1251 and appears to have been an Italian.

 

St Peter does seem to have had some interesting rectors over the centuries; In the 14th century, three rectors in a row had permission to be absent from the benefice (i.e. they were absentee rectors).

Later that century the rector was a notable 'Chop church', that is, he was known to exchange benefices with other rectors. 'Chopping' was the practice of buying and selling benefices to the highest bidder, or in some cases, trading benefices between rectors for personal gain. No wonder the church was so rich in that era!

The tower of St Peter is built into the south-west corner of the nave, while the north aisle runs the entire length of the nave. Most churches have the tower on the west end. Saxon stonework is incorporated into the lower part of the tower's west wall.

The lovely altar in St Peter`s Church

Under the tower arch is a deeply cut 15th-century font. It is so large that it may have originally been a 12th-century tub font, cut down in the late medieval period to its current shape. The carving is very worn, which is not surprising when you consider that from 1877 it stood in the churchyard for 20 years before it was brought back inside the church.

So, back to Lower slaughter and a short drive to Bourton-on-the-Water, and from there a walk to Wych Rissington.

 

The start of the pathway leads to open fields. About one and half miles I believe.

We arrived at another pretty Cotswold village - Wych Rissington

So peaceful. We saw just one car as we walked the length of the village to the church.

The Victorian drinking fountain on the village green. Also used as a place for memorial flowers to be placed today.

St Laurence’s Church dates from the 12th Century. The tower, though short, rises in four diminishing stages, with a doorway in the first, a lancet in the second, and small lancet bell-openings in both the third and the fourth. It is very noticeable that as you approach the church, it has a very squat appearance.

One claim to fame for this church was that Gustav Holst, the celebrated composer, fresh from school in Cheltenham, was an organist here in 1892/3 and the organ he used is still in use. How about that for fame! Although there were doubtless many interesting things about this church, this fact for me was one of the best.

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Castle Combe

Castle Combe has been called 'The Prettiest Village in England' and with good reason; visitors have been coming to enjoy its charms for at least a century and the small street leading from the Market Cross down to the By Brook is as picturesque today as it ever was.

Castle Combe has featured regularly as a film location, most recently in The Wolf Man, Stardust and Stephen Spielberg’s War Horse. It was also used in the original Dr Doolittle film.

The village houses are all typical Cotswold type, constructed in stone with thick walls and roofs made from split natural stone tiles. The properties are many hundreds of years old and are listed as ancient monuments. Strict rules apply to preserve the beauty and character of Castle Combe for later generations to admire.

By the Middle Ages, the village in the valley had become an important center for the wool industry. The spinsters and weavers lived in the cottages (hence names such as "Weaver’s House") and the river, still known as By Brook, provided the power to run the mills.

I must confess that the first thing that sprang to my mind when the village was mentioned was the race circuit! Not some beautiful village such as this.

View from the river bridge

By Brook - the river running through Castle Combe

The Market Cross

This historic monument is in the center of the village. It is believed to date from the 14th century when the privilege to hold a weekly market was first granted. 

Just below this there is also a structure sometimes referred to as the 'buttercross', which was in fact for tethering and mounting horses. Nowadays for the tourists to sit on!

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Lacock Abbey and Village

When we put Lacock Abbey on our list of places to visit, it was not apparent (I didn't read it all!) that this was hardly a ruin, but a massive house with a spectacular history.

It started, in the 12th Century, with Ela, 3rd Countess of Salisbury. She was born into a very privileged family and when her father, William FitzPatrick (2nd Earl of Salisbury) died, Ela, who was just nine years old, inherited her father’s title, fortune, and lands.

As an heiress, Ela came under the protection of the King. He arranged a marriage for his young ward to his half-brother, William Longespée. Living at what we now know as Old Sarum, William and Ela had eight children, one of whom, Nicholas Longespée, became Bishop of Salisbury.

William died in 1226 while Ela was still only 39 years old. She took over his role of Sheriff of Wiltshire on a temporary basis and was later appointed as Sheriff in her own right. All the couple’s wealth, land and title reverted to her. From this time, she started planning the founding of what was to become Lacock Abbey; by 1229 she had taken the first step of giving land at Lacock to the church.

The founding of the abbey dedicated 'to God and the Blessed Mary and Saint Bernard' was partly as a tribute to her husband, and partly as a sanctuary where she would later retire as a nun.

On 16 April 1232, Ela laid the foundation stone of Lacock Abbey and building work began. Ela joined Lacock Abbey as a nun in 1238. Three hundred years later, the convent closed. In 1539 to be precise, as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. 

Our first glimpse of the Abbey through the trees.

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, the Abbey was purchased by Tudor courtier Sir William Sharington, who converted the building into a family home. The church was knocked down and the stone was used to extend the building to form the house it later became.

The house later passed into the hands of the Talbot family through marriage, and during the 19th century became the residence of William Henry Fox Talbot, who made history by capturing the world’s first photographic negative in the building’s South Gallery, lending the Abbey its name as the birthplace of modern photography.

William Henry Fox Talbot inherited Lacock from his father in 1800 when he was just five months old. The estate was in debt and was let out until Fox Talbot moved in with his mother and stepmother in 1827. A pioneering scientist and keen mathematician, Fox Talbot is one of Lacock's most famous residents. He lived in the abbey until his death in 1877 and is buried in the village churchyard.

For us today it seems normal to take photos of the world around us. We use a camera or phone daily, snapping pictures of friends and family, beautiful landscapes, even the food we eat. Who would guess that all this started here at Lacock Abbey in 1835!

Frustrated by his inability to paint and draw, he wanted to find a way to 'fix images'.

After some experiments Talbot took an image of a window at his home Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire in 1835. This image, not much bigger than a stamp, is now celebrated as the world’s earliest surviving photographic negative.

As a result of its past incarnations as a nunnery and private home, Lacock Abbey is a fascinating mishmash of architectural styles.

Today it is a Grade I-listed building and belongs to the National Trust, after being gifted to the charity by the Talbot family in 1944. It's well worth a visit, as is the village, which is also mainly National Trust.

The cauldron in the Warming Room. One of the many rooms in the old abbey part to be used in Harry Potter films. 

The calefactory (also warming house) was an important room or building in a medieval monastery in Western Europe. It was here that a communal fire was kept so that the monks could warm themselves after long hours of study in the (unheated) cloister or other work. 

 The cloisters

Books were very precious, and people of religious orders were virtually the only people who could read and write, so keeping books safe in a locked place made sense.

Two of the many old doors you can find around Lacock Abbey.

You can see by this image how the house it was to become was built over the existing cloisters.

Having left the Abbey, we made our way to the village itself where you are greeted by a typical Cotswold village, with houses such as below.

Some of the beautiful old houses include the stall outside this house with its honesty box selling `Harry Potter Wands` I didn't buy one!

From the architecture it is thought that the Angel Inn was built in the late 15th century, as an inn. This was a time when the wool trade was flourishing, and the property is believed to have been converted into a wool merchant's house in the 16th and 17th centuries

Prior to the advent of mechanized spits, the process of roasting meat was a laborious process. To be evenly cooked, meat had to be regularly rotated on a metal spit, a process which required hours of constant attention. Originally, low-ranking kitchen servants manually turned such spits. Eventually, however, they were powered by a breed of short-legged dogs known as turnspits. The turnspit was bred specifically to run inside wheels which were mounted on a wall near an open range, like the example at the George Inn in Lacock, which I believe is the only example in the country to still be in place, although there are some in museums. We had lunch at the George Inn, so we had a good look at it, but my photo was rubbish!

Note: These two images above are not mine 

The wheel was attached to a chain, which ran down to the spit. As the dog ran, the spit turned, cooking the meat evenly. Wheels like this became indispensable items of kitchen machinery, not only in household's wealthy enough to have the means to roast a large joint of meat on a regular basis, but also in inns and taverns. But by the middle of the 19th century, with the introduction of inexpensive spit-turning machines called clock jacks, these wheels became redundant. So too did the turnspit dog; the breed is now extinct.

At the eastern end of this Lacock street, stands the medieval parish church of Lacock, dedicated to St Cyriac. It is possible that a late Saxon church stood on this spot, but the present building is largely a product of the 15th century, with some earlier stonework.

The dedication of Lacock's church is unusual in England. Cyriac was supposedly a three-year-old child executed by the Roman Governor of Cilicia in 313 AD for refusing to recant his Christian beliefs. 

Churches dedicated to Cyriac are common in Normandy, emphasizing Lacock's strong links to the region in the aftermath of the Norman invasion.

The sheep gate at the church so that the sheep cannot get into the churchyard, but people can.

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