Welcome to King Henry VIII's Tour

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Welcome to King Henry VIII's Tour of Samlesbury
Hall
Welcome Lords and Ladies to my tour of Samlesbury
Hall, you will become Historical detectives after
this short course of factual and interesting
insights into the life of a still-working
household. Firstly let me tell you where the
name Samlesbury comes from. The Romans walked
into England, not exactly an invasion and about
80 AD they arrived here in Lancashire, then known
as Leyland and Amounderness. After a brief
encounter with the population of only 600
Lancastrians from the Brigantes tribe an
agreement was made with their Queen Cartimandua
to live side by side in relative peace. To seal
this peace the Romans married off their Goddess
Belisama to the tribal God Belanos. Belisama was
the Goddess of Fire, Water and Metal working and
the Romans named the river Belisama, now the
Ribble. Where the river Darwen meets the Ribble
at Walton le dale, the Romans built a supply
fortress called Belisama, manned by the Sarmatian
cavalry regiment , it was a workshop where
armour, weapons and supplies were made and
stored. There is a park-and-ride car park there
now. When the Romans left England, the Saxons
took the name and changed it to Samlesbury, or
Sama the Borough. Darwen means White Oak and the
river ran through peat which discoloured it to
become Blackburn. The original house was built by
the Dewyres, (The Eaves) family, descendents
from a Scottish family who were related to King
Malcolm of Scotland, after fleeing the tyranny of
Macbeth they made their way eventually to Wales
where they settled down. Movement in the family
ended up in Lancashire where they built a 38 foot
square Scottish castle on the banks of the
Ribble, 2 miles from this house at Lower Hall.
Tyranny was still following them because Robert
the Bruce on his ransacking visit to Lancashire
in 1322 burnt the castle down. The next stage in
this family saga was the marriage of Dewyres
Daughter Alice to Gilbert De Southworth from
Warrington. The first building, a medieval house
was then constructed with a thatched roof. His
land eventually amounting to13,000 acres at its
peak! Look at the staircase in the entrance
lobby, it is the wrong way round, clues can be
seen at the window position and the blocked up
doorway into the chapel. Thomas de Southworth
wanted to upgrade his position from Master of
the House to Lord of the Manor, where he
needed to have the house renamed a manor. The
qualifications are a farm, a large house, a store
of fresh fish for Fridays, a granary and mill and
lastly a Chapel complete with Priest. He built
his Chapel facing east in a detached building
with two entrances, the lower one for the
workers, the upper one for the lord and lady, see
where the commoners door has been sealed off.
Facing east has made the buildings out of square
in position to each other, precession of the
equinox has given a 5 degree error over the 150
year gap between building phases. There was a
wooden barrier between the congregation and the
priest, this was looted later on in the house
history by Braddyll for his own house at
Connishead. Braddyll had been a creditor to the
Southworths and took over the Hall to repay a
debt, he decided to change it into the Braddyll
Arms Inn.
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Feel the subsidence of the Chapel, look at the
bow in the ceiling beams. When the chapel was a
political liability to the safety of the
Southworth's during the reformation, it was
joined up with the main house and became the
living quarters of the Lord and Lady, being
divided into a corridor, and a bedroom. The
chapel end became the Solar room or Library. At
this time Whalley Abbey was raised to the ground
and the windows ended up in this upgraded
extension. Now let us walk back into the
entrance lobby, see the bow in the floor, if you
stand at the bottom of the bow it will be exactly
at the centre of the fireplace. Notice the
hearth-stone, how thick it is, much too strong
for a mere hearth-stone because it is also a
lintel for the roof of a tunnel. Now heres some
speculation, in the later half of the 16th
century and the beginning of the 17 century the
search for priests was the biggest hunt in
history. A man called Nicholas Owen, deformed and
small in stature, became a folklore hero for his
construction of Priest holes and escape tunnels.
He built over 60 escape routes in Catholic houses
around the country, his motto was One way in two
ways out. He was caught hiding gunpowder
plotters at Hindlip Hall and was tortured to
death in the Tower of London. He was one of the
martyrs to become St.Nicholas Owen. Not one of
his escape routes and locations were ever written
down, but we have one here which meets the
description in the search for the tunnels in the
17th century. The Fireplace has a false back
wall, entrance is from the left of the fire and
under the floor. There is sufficient space in the
back enclosure for 11 desperate souls a vent is
clearly seen at the front of the house about 20
feet up the wall. The tunnel goes two ways, 20
yards South and 40 yards North, both ends meeting
the moat for the final escape. Remember one way
in two ways out. The tunnel is 2 feet wide by 4
feet high with an arched brick roof. Some of it
has collapsed under the floor hence the bowing of
the beams which sat on it. See how rough the
Tudor cast iron is in the fireplace, open cast on
brown sand. This house is termed a half timbered
house, not because it was half wood/stone or
even Wood/wattle, but because it was made from
halved trees, each opposing main strut being from
the same tree to equalise warpage movement. Trees
were selected from the same area to be of similar
character. This technique came from the ship
building skills and so the house is termed of
ships timber because of the way it was built and
the quality of the wood used, non of the wood has
actually been in a ship. Permiter footing of
stone. Black and white a Victorian mistake of
applying tar to protect the wood, should be grey
and cream for true colours. Let us now go outside
into the yard. Merchants would come here over
the bridge to sell their wares, cloth was sold by
the yard, centre of body to finger tips. There
was three schools of Tudor building styles, Lower
land from the midlands southwards the houses had
vertical striped timber about 1.5 feet apart
filled in with Wattle and Daub. The midlands
houses had squares about 5ft square with
diagonals for strength. Here in the upper north
we had small squares strengthened by inserts in
the corners, the inserts are patterned in a
design called quatrefoil based upon heraldic
emblems of lucky 4 leaf clovers. You can pick out
the original quatrefoils by the direction of the
wood grain which should be around the square not
across it. The cross over points of the main
beams are covered with decorated wooden plaques
to stop water ingress into the joints. The house
was built in frames on the floor then each frame
was hoisted into position before being fixed to
each other with dovetail joints and dowels. The
wood mainly used is Wych Elm, a common tree here
in Tudor times which was very straight, strong
and water resistant due to the wetness of the
Leyland moors. Oak is used for smaller lengths
due to the twisting shape of the tree. The Horse
chestnut trees in the grounds were not introduced
to England until about 1700, so were not used in
the construction. With so much intrigue and
treachery going on in the country, houses had
listening places usually in an overhanging roof
or window, these were called the eavesdrops for
spying on visitors.
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This house has two eavesdrops, one goes into the
old kitchen from an upper bedroom, even the staff
were spied upon! And the other is more discreetly
positioned to listen to visitors outside the
house. Look at the upper oriel window with the
Roman Emperor's head carved in the eave. See
where the flower overlaps itself, an
eavesdropping hole. So watch what you say. This
window depicts the Bishop of Lancaster, Gilbert
De Southworth and an Emperor of Rome whom
Southworth claimed to descend from. Now walk over
to the large Oriel bay window. This is
technically the wrong name for this window,
because oriels must return to the wall before
reaching the ground. The term Bay also comes from
nautical building and is usually the width of 4
oxen in a barn, about 16 feet. The Bay was
originally a withdrawing room on the ground floor
for the women, a Solar for the Lord on the upper
floor in the jetty. When the original chapel was
redefined this solar became the chapel. Behind
this chapel is the second Priest hole, you can
see into it later from upstairs access. The
second emergency exit is where the unmortared
wall meets the roof and is covered with just
Daub. This kick-out wall leads to the roof for
escape again the second way out. Look in the
chapel for the white stains on the floor, There
was originally blood stains there from the murder
of a priest found hiding in the hole, his ghost
is present. When later owners wanted to convert
the hall into an Inn, nobody would stay in this
room, so about 1750 the floor was taken up and a
new one built, but the stains came back in
white!!! Spooky eh? Look for window glass with
circular ripples in them, these are called
Quarries and they were made by spinning molten
glass into a disc before cutting up into the
panes. These are original Tudor glass. Glass was
so expensive in Tudor times, that the cost of a
house for sale did not include the windows, the
previous owner would take them with them for
their new house. See the roof tiles. The ones
that go smaller as they go up the roof are
original Tudor, made of Dittonian stone they were
graded into stone sizes before cutting and then
fitted in this fashion for strength and roof
loading. Slates did not appear until about 1700
in the Northwest. Let us now go back into the
house and into the Parlour, from the word to
parley, to talk. A sitting room where
conversations went on, there was a corridor,
tapestries hanging at each end as a sign of
wealth. See the stone fireplace with Roman
numerals. Smoother Victorian cast iron inset. M
means Millennium or 1000, a Mille was a Roman
1000 paces and we get our Mile from this. C
100, X 10 and V 5. Can you work it out? The
answer is 1545. The inner fireplace is a
Victorian modification, when the 7 families of
weavers left the house , leaving the fireplace
damaged to hold a cooking eye in the centre. The
coats of arms are Hoghton, Southworth and
Langton. A ghost was recorded here by the workers
who were removing the chapel barrier, warning
them not to remove the Great Hall screen, which
they refused to do when asked. Furniture was
made of Oak but could discolour with the rays of
the sun, so they were stained dark for effect and
for protection. Stains were expensive, the
cheapest being Pigs blood and Urine ,up to the
most expensive being the powdered shells of Lac
Beetles mixed with spirit. It took 10,000 beetles
to make 1 litre of stain. The terms Shellac and
Lacquer come from this stain.
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See King Henry VIIIs carving over the old
corridor, good looking man eh! The other carving
opposite him is of Queen Katherine of Aragon, his
wife for 20 years. A lot of hoo-ha has been said
about Henry and Katherine, they were in fact
deeply in love for 10 years of marriage until her
Father, King Ferdinand of Spain betrayed Henry
against the French by not turning up for battle
and letting Henrys army be beaten. Henry never
trusted Katherine after that. Let us not
digress. On to the Great hall. The word Hall
means All, a place where all eat and meet. The
original medieval hall had a thatched roof, no
chimney and a central fireplace. The Lord and
lady would sit at the Solar end at their Board
(The word table was not in use as it is French in
origin). The Board was a large single piece of
Oak on Trestles, The Lord sitting at the middle,
a priest on his right side and his wife on the
left. All negotiations and business was done at
this board. Words such as as Chairman of the
Board, Boardroom, Sideboard, Cupboard, across the
board, above board and room and board came from
this. Look for the Roses in the ceiling beams,
Sub-rosa means under the rose, a medieval
meaning that anything told under the rose was to
be a secret. The Rose emblem came from Greek
mythology, Aphrodite was having many lovers, her
son Eros gave the rose to his best friend to keep
quiet about her indiscretions. The Rose is for
love, trust and honour. Imagine the central fire,
a wooden cowling over it guiding the smoke up to
the centre of the roof. Not piercing the roof but
stopping short allowing the smoke to exit slowly
through the thatch. On the other side of the beam
a block and tackle carrying 3 chains which hung a
large cast pot onto the side of the fire, the
cooks assistant would raise the pot from the
floor to turn it 120 degrees for thorough
heating. This conserva lidded pot, eternal
kettle" became known as the Hotpot. Now lets
study the Medieval day. You fasted over night and
awoke at 5 AM where you ate Break the fast
(breakfast) of water and bread. Then you worked
for 4 hours until 9 AM when you have dinner,
meats, fruit etc. You ate off bread trenchers,
the upper-crust being for the Lord and Lady.
Leftover food was put into the Hotpot and boiled
all afternoon. You worked a further 8 hours until
5 PM when you had the Pot soup (Supper), you
then went to bed at 9PM and fasted again. Your
life expectancy was 40 years, 1 in 2 children
died before 5 years old, you married at
12! Remember the ghost story about the Great hall
barrier, well it was located across the end doors
so the Lord would not see the workers, it was not
taken out of the room. It was dismantled and made
into the minstrels gallery as an effect for the
Inn. But alas, the scallywag, Braddyll, who did
this act of vandalism put it at the wrong end,
the gallery should be seen by the Lord, not over
his head! Look for the original tree which formed
the Cruck beams and see how they are mirror
imaged (half timbered). The main portrait at the
other end is of Queen Anne, the Oriel stained
glass added in the early 1900s are of Catholic
Monarchs. King Henry VII, was the first Tudor
King, Tudor a Welsh family from Penmynydd,
Anglesey took the throne from Richard III in
Battle. Tudor means House of Iron. The
Greyhound in the Crest is the Tudor symbol, King
Henry VII and VIII favourite pet was a greyhound.
Mary Tudor was Bloody Mary who married King
Philip of Spain, the eagle crest. James I son of
Mary Queen of Scots inherited the throne of
England after Queen Elizabeth I died.
The Great hall screen before being dismantled to
make the Minstrels Gallery
A Carving Screen to hide the cook with a Knife,
no knife to be in the presence of the Lord of the
Manor.
http//www.anglesey-history.co.uk/places/penmynydd
/
Tudor Welsh origins website
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St. John Southworth. English martyr, b. in
Lancashire, 1592, martyred at Tyburn, 28 June,
1654. A member of a junior branch of the
Southworths of Samlesbury Hall, Blackburn, he
was ordained priest at the English College,
Douai, and was sent on a holy mission, 13
October, 1619. He was arrested and condemned to
death in Lancashire in 1627, and imprisoned first
in Lancaster Castle, and afterwards in the
Clink, London, whence he and fifteen other
priests were, on 11 April, 1630, delivered to
the French Ambassador for transportation abroad.
In 1636 he had been released from the Gatehouse,
Westminster, and was living at Clerkenwell, but
frequently visited the plague-stricken dwellings
of Westminster to convert the dying. In 1637 he
seems to have taken up his abode in Westminster,
where he was arrested, 28 November, and again
sent to the Gatehouse. Thence he was again
transferred to the Clink and in 1640 was brought
before the Commissioners for Causes
Ecclesiastical, who sent him back there 24 June.
On 16 July he was again liberated, but by 2
December he was again in the Gatehouse. After his
final apprehension he was tried at the Old
Bailey, and as he insisted on pleading "guilty"
to being a priest, he was reluctantly condemned
by the Recorder of London, Sgt. Steel. He was
allowed to make a long speech at the gallows, and
his remains were permitted to pass into the
possession of the Duke of Norfolk's family, who
had them sent to the English College at Douai.
The relics of the Saint's body, hidden during the
French Revolution, were rediscovered in 1927, and
brought back to England, where they are enshrined
in Westminster Cathedral.
Bye for now
The windows from Whalley Abbey
Well thats the tour folks, I hope you enjoyed it
and that it gives you the interest to follow your
own course of study into an intriguing part of
our Countrys history that shaped our destiny
more than at any other time before. Please do not
believe all the malicious gossip that the media
puts out about Henrys Kingship, he was a strong,
but well loved King and very misunderstood. His
English Bible brought together the many local
languages to become the English Language as we
know it today.
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Websites for your own research
http//www.sspx.ca/Angelus/1983_January/Saint_Nico
las_Owen.htm
St. Nicholas Owen
http//www.westmercia.police.uk/1024/aboutus/histo
ry.htm
http//www.camelotbooks.freeserve.co.uk/ptch4.htm
Roman Belisama
http//www.roman-britain.org/places/bremetenacum.h
tm
http//users.aol.com/sforgnews/sc_su98/rbruce.html
Robert the Bruce
http//www.evere.co.uk/eavespage/origins/oswaldOSB
.htm
Southworth geneology
Curious Fact The term nicked for stolen is
medieval! A Lord of a manor with metals in his
land would let miners dig it out for a 5050
share. With only 5 days allowed off work per year
there was a rule that any days over the 5 were
against the partnership. Anybody could take over
the working of the mine if they could prove that
5 extra days were taken off. They would watch the
mine daily, if the miner missed an extra day, a
mark was made on the wooden lintel at the
entrance to the mine, this nick would be
evidence, if there were 5 nicks the mine changed
hands! Its been nicked.
Victorian use of the Great hall
Dittonian Stone and Quatrefoils
The White Lady. I have already mentioned two
spooky happenings but Samlesbury Hall is most
famous for the White Lady Ghost. Dorothy
Southworth loved the Son of the Protestant
Hoghtons, forbidden to see each other by her
father, the couple planned to run away together.
Dorothys brother found out about the plan and
ambushed the lover and his two friends, killing
them all. Dorothy was sent to a nunnery in France
to keep the murder secret where she died broken
hearted. Her spirit returned to Samlesbury and
she has been seen meeting her lover near to where
the draw bridge was situated. Many years later
three skeletons were found at this same spot.
http//users.aol.com/sforgnews/sc_sp99/sp9901.html
The White Lady Story
The upstairs corridor