The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn and derision by the multitude in these advanced days o

A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES" During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise— viz. a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and hiding-places in our ancient bu

HINDLIP HALL The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others, Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: " A true discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr. Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons, there found in January last, 1605,

PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden, stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks, or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and a fine old stone firepl

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers, and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire) were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St. Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert, the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the curio

HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our ancestral halls, reduces

COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC. Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale books of our early youth and concealed its

KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1] gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures; but the story is so closely connected with the present subject that we must record

CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC. An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding those Royalist

JAMES II.'S ESCAPES We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that ill-fated line of kings and queens. James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise, but his successors appear to have been doomed by fat

JAMES II.'S ESCAPES ( continued ), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE" Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there exis

MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC. At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through sheer force of habit. Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places!

HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of Stuart. In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down in 1761), there was a large concealed c

CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC. Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and staircases—Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House, Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples. The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and decay—as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire, pulled down in 1803

MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC. Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses, frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey, Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy in learning to

HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES Horsfield, in his History of Sussex , gives a curious account of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin, the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient receptacle for contraband goods. Until recently there was an ingenious hidi

THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's" gr