Boscobel House is a building in the parish of Boscobel

Boscobel

Boscobel is a very small civil parish in the east of Shropshire, England, on the border with Staffordshire. To the north is the Staffordshire village of Bishops Wood....

 in Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, as is clear from all Ordnance Survey maps, although the boundary of the property is contiguous with the county's boundary with Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, and it has a Stafford post code. It is near the city of Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

. It has been, at various times; a farmhouse, a hunting lodge, and a holiday home; but it is most famous for its role in the escape of Charles II

Escape of Charles II

The Escape of Charles II from England in 1651 is a key episode in his life. Although it took only six weeks, it had a major effect on his attitudes for the rest of his life.-The fugitive king:...

 after the Battle of Worcester

Battle of Worcester

The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II...

 in 1651.

Origins

Boscobel House was created around 1632, when landowner John Giffard of White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory , once the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood, was an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, now in ruins, in Shropshire, in the parish of Boscobel, some eight miles northwest of Wolverhampton, near Junction 3 of the M54 motorway...

 converted a timber-framed farmhouse, built some time in the 16th century on the lands of White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory , once the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood, was an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, now in ruins, in Shropshire, in the parish of Boscobel, some eight miles northwest of Wolverhampton, near Junction 3 of the M54 motorway...

, into a hunting lodge.

The priory and its estate, including the farmhouse site, had been leased from the Crown by William Skeffington of Wolverhampton at the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 about a century earlier. It passed into the Giffard family because Skeffington left it to his widow, Joan, and she subsequently married Edward Giffard, son of Sir John Giffard of Chillington Hall

Chillington Hall

Chillington Hall is a Georgian country house near to Brewood, Staffordshire, four miles northwest of Wolverhampton, England. It is the residence of the Giffard family. The Grade I listed house was designed by Francis Smith in 1724 and John Soane in 1785...

. The reversion was sold to William Whorwood in 1540, which made him the effective owner, but one of the early lessees must have paid off Whorwood, because it was then passed on to Edward's heir, John.

John Giffard decided to make the farmhouse more useful by building a substantial extension to the south, including a living room and bedrooms more fitted to use by a gentry

Gentry

Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....

 family. Giffard called the new hunting lodge Boscobel House which is believed to come from the Italian phrase "bosco bello" meaning "in the midst of fair woods". In 1632, Boscobel House was surrounded by dense woodlands. The name is also clearly reminiscent of the Norman ancestor of the Giffard family, Osborn or Osbern de Bolebec, count of Longueville, and may be a deliberate verbal play. Blount, the main source for the events, portrays the naming as an after-dinner activity, and attributes it to Sir Basil Brook(e)

Basil Brooke (metallurgist)

Sir Basil Brooke , English metallurgist and recusant, inherited the manor of Madeley from his father. This contained iron and steel works and coal mines...

, a prominent recusant from Madeley, Shropshire

Madeley, Shropshire

Madeley is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, now part of the new town of Telford. The parish had a population of 17,935 at the 2001 census.Madeley is recorded in the Domesday Book, having been founded before the 8th century...

, who was one of Giffard's guests at the housewarming party

Housewarming party

A housewarming party is a party held within approximately 90 days of moving into a new residence. It is an occasion for the hosts to present their new home to their friends, and for friends to give gifts to furnish the new home...

.

Recusancy and the escape of Charles II

The Giffard family were Recusants - Catholics who refused to participate in the worship of the established Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

. For them, this brought fines, imprisonment and discrimination: for priests it could mean barbarous execution. The Giffards took care to surround themselves with reliable retainers: until the mid-19th century, after Catholic Emancipation

Catholic Emancipation

Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...

, their servants and tenants were mainly Catholic. The house itself served as a secret place for the shelter of Catholic priests, with at least one priest-hole. This secret purpose of the house was to play a key part in the history of the country. By 1651, when Boscobel played host to Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, it was owned by John Giffard's heir, his daughter, Frances Cotton. Frances had married John Cotton, a Huntingdonshire squire, in 1633, but was a widow by this time. She was not resident at the time of the events that made Boscobel House one of the most evocative sites in the English royalist imagination. It was here that Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 hid in a tree to escape discovery by Parliamentary soldiers during his escape

Escape of Charles II

The Escape of Charles II from England in 1651 is a key episode in his life. Although it took only six weeks, it had a major effect on his attitudes for the rest of his life.-The fugitive king:...

 after the Battle of Worcester.

Initially, Charles was led to White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory

White Ladies Priory , once the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood, was an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, now in ruins, in Shropshire, in the parish of Boscobel, some eight miles northwest of Wolverhampton, near Junction 3 of the M54 motorway...

 by Charles Giffard, a cousin of the owner, and his servant Francis Yates, the only man subsequently executed for his part in the escape. There, the Penderel family, tenants and servants of the Giffard family began to play important roles in guiding and caring for him. From White Ladies, Richard Penderel led Charles in an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Severn near Madeley, Shropshire

Madeley, Shropshire

Madeley is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, now part of the new town of Telford. The parish had a population of 17,935 at the 2001 census.Madeley is recorded in the Domesday Book, having been founded before the 8th century...

. They were forced to retrace their steps and Charles took refuge at Boscobel, where he was met by Colonel William Careless

William Careless (Carlos)

Colonel William Careless was a Royalist officer of the English Civil War. It has been estimated that he was born c. 1620, however, it is more likely that he was born c. 1610. He was the second son of John Careless of Broom Hall, Brewood, Staffordshire...

, whose brother rented land from the Giffards at Broom Hall, Brewood

Brewood

Brewood refers both to a settlement, which was once a town but is now a village, in South Staffordshire, England, and to the civil parish of which it is the centre. Located around , Brewood village lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton city centre and eleven miles south of...

. Careless and the King spent all day hiding in a nearby oak tree (which became known as The Royal Oak), from where he could see the patrols searching for him. Later Charles spent the night hiding in one of Boscobel’s Priest hole

Priest hole

"Priest hole" is the term given to hiding places for priests built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558....

s. He was moved from Boscobel to Moseley Old Hall

Moseley Old Hall

Moseley Old Hall is a National Trust property located in Fordhouses, north of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom. It is famous as one of the resting places of Charles II of England during his escape to France following defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.-Background:The Hall was built in...

, another Catholic redoubt near Wolverhampton, and ultimately escaped the region posing as the servant of Jane Lane

Jane Lane, Lady Fisher

Jane Lane played a heroic role in the Escape of Charles II in 1651. The main significance of the story is the key part that the escape played in forming the character and the opinions of Charles.-Origins:...

 of Bentley

Bentley, West Midlands

Bentley is an area in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall located around Junction 10 of the M6 Motorway. It shares borders with the areas of Willenhall, Beechdale, Ashmore Park, Pleck, Darlaston and Alumwell.- History :...

, whose family were also landowners at Broom Hall and the Hyde in Brewood.

Subsequent history

Frances Cotton, née Giffard, died shortly after these events, and both White Ladies and Boscobel passed via her daughter, Jane Cotton, who had married Basil Fitzherbert in 1648, to the Fitzherbert family of Norbury Hall

Norbury Hall

Norbury Manor is a 15th century Elizabethan manor house and the adjoining 13th century stone-built medieval Norbury Hall, known as The Old Manor in Norbury near Ashbourne, Derbyshire...

, Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

. The Fitzherberts were major landowners and let Boscobel as a farm to a succession of tenants, including several members of the Penderel family. The estate and Boscobel were sold to Walter Evans, a Derbyshire industrialist, in 1812, although the Fitzherbert family retained the White Ladies Priory site. It was the Evans family who restored the house and gardens, often in fanciful ways, and nourished the legend of Charles II. A substantial farm building was appended to the northern side of the house in the 19th century, giving the present house three distinct wings. It was sold to Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford

Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford

Lieutenant-Colonel Orlando Bridgeman, 5th Earl of Bradford DL, JP , styled Viscount Newport from 1898 to 1915, was a British peer, Conservative politician and soldier...

 in 1918, who placed both it and the tree in the hands of the Ministry of Works

Ministry of Works

The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943, during World War II, to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the Ministry retained responsibility for Government building projects....

 in 1954. It passed, via the Department of the Environment

Department of the Environment

Department of the Environment or Department for the Environment may refer to:-Australia:* Department of the Environment and Water Resources...

 to English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 in 1984.

The house

The three stages of building are readily apparent to the modern visitor. The 16th century farm is clearly central and is easily distinguished from the 19th century farm which adjoins it at right angles. The latter is brick-built but painted black and white to simulate timber framing. The main house, built by John Giffard around 1632, is mainly hidden behind the earlier and later structures on first approach. It is timber-framed, part brick, but covered in stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

, which was applied in the 18th century to cover up faults in the structure and materials. Its east and west ends are marked respectively by the bowed structure, probably originally housing the staircase, and the chimney

Chimney

A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...

 stack.
The 19th century farm today houses an introductory display, covering the escape of Charles II and the history of Boscobel. The 16th century farm, known as the north range, houses an exhibition of dairy equipment, focussing on the butter and cheese making that were important here in the Victorian period. In 2011, the upper floor was opened to the public for the first time, allowing a much better appreciation of the construction and clearly showing the differing woodwork, indicating that the building was much altered even before John Giffard's additions.

The western end of the north range is now separated off to provide the entrance hall and stairs for the main house, a change apparently made by the Evans family in the 19th century. The ground floor of John Giffard's development is occupied largely by the Parlour

Parlour

Parlour , from the French word parloir, from parler , denotes an "audience chamber". In parts of the United Kingdom and the United States, parlours are common names for certain types of food service houses, restaurants or special service areas, such as tattoo parlors...

, much-altered but containing a good deal of Jacobean

Jacobean

Jacobean indicates the period of English history that coincides with the reign of James I of England :*Jacobean era*Jacobean architecture*Jacobean literature*Jacobean English...

 panelling. The Victorian fireplace is surmounted by three black marble panels, each engraved to illustrate aspects of Charles' escape - two of them designed by a daughter of Walter Evans. Through the Parlour is the so-called Oratory

Oratory (worship)

An oratory is a Christian room for prayer, from the Latin orare, to pray.-Catholic church:In the Roman Catholic Church, an oratory is a structure other than a parish church, set aside by ecclesiastical authority for prayer and the celebration of Mass...

, presented by the Evans family as a small prayer room, but probably where the 17th century stairs were housed. This contains a portrait of Jane Penderel, known as Dame Joan, the matriarch of the family to whom Charles owed so much, and a chest, dated 1642, which appears to be mainly 19th century work.

On the first floor of the main house is a bedroom known as the Squire

Squire

The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...

's Room. Between a fireplace and the bed is a door into a closet, which has a trapdoor into a small "secret place", alleged to be a priest's hole. However, the space appears to be both too small and too obvious, as chimney areas were known to make good hiding places. This floor also contains another bedroom, known as the White Room. Originally, the entire first floor was probably a single large room: in the 17th century large bedrooms were used socially, while the Victorians developed the modern notion of the bedroom as a private space.

The second floor is a large attic, divided into two spaces today. In the first, at the very top of the stairs, is a trapdoor opening into a more convincing priest hole. This is where Charles II is thought to have spent an uncomfortable night, as it is only 4 feet (1.2m) in height while he was very tall for the time, around 6 ft 2in (1.85m). Beyond this attic space is the Bower Room, used as a bedroom in the 19th century.

Grounds

North of the house lies a large farmyard, mostly surrounded by Victorian farm buildings, although there is a large 17th century barn

Barn

A barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house livestock or to store farming vehicles and equipment...

. The yard provides picnic space, as well as housing a display of Victorian farm machinery and equipment.

To the south are the formal gardens. First is a parterre

Parterre

A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

 hedged with box

Buxus

Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood ....

, laid out in recent times but occupying approximately the area of a box garden shown in 17th century views of Boscobel. On its south-west corner is the Mount, a mound topped by a modern shelter, where Charles spent the day reading.

Beyond the formal area is a kitchen garden with an orchard

Orchard

An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...

 of fruit trees. Alongside runs a walk flanked on both sides by hazelnut

Hazelnut

A hazelnut is the nut of the hazel and is also known as a cob nut or filbert nut according to species. A cob is roughly spherical to oval, about 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm in diameter, with an outer fibrous husk surrounding a smooth shell. A filbert is more elongated, being about twice...

 trees.

The Royal Oak

The Royal Oak

Royal Oak

The Royal Oak is the English oak tree within which King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was located in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. Charles confirmed to Samuel Pepys in 1680 that while he was...

 stands about 150 yards (137m) south-west of the house, in a farmer's field, but with an access path. It is now believed to be a direct descendant of the original tree used by Charles and Careless to hide from the Parliamentary soldiers, although it has sometimes been presented as the actual tree. It has been surrounded by iron railings for many decades, but an outer wooden fence was added to protect visitors from falling timber after major cracks appeared in Autumn 2010. It has suffered badly from tourist depredations in the past, but its main threat is bad weather.

A daughter tree, planted to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria

The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was celebrated on June 20, 1887. Victoria marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession on June 20, 1887 with a banquet to which 50 European kings and princes were invited.-History:...

, stands in the garden of the house and is marked by a commemorative plaque. Saplings grown from the Royal Oak's acorn

Acorn

The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives . It usually contains a single seed , enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad...

s are sold by English Heritage in the shop.

Opening

Boscobel House and its grounds are generally open from Wednesday to Sunday each week in the summer (April to October). There are entrance charges, although entry is free to English Heritage members. Free educational group visits are available by arrangement.

External links

• Thomas Blount: Boscobel or the History of His Sacred Majesties Most Miraculous Preservation Available in various formats at Internet Archive, this is the earliest, not entirely reliable account, of the escape of Charles II, published shortly after the Restoration in 1660.
• BBC on Boscobel House
• English Heritage entry: Boscobel House
• Roland Film's Documentary on the Restoration of Boscobel House
• Postcard images from a personal site