Mystery at Compton Wynyates
The Tudor mansion of Compton Wynyates is full of secrets and puzzles, some macabre, some downright peculiar.
published 1901
King Edward VII 1901-1910
A view of Compton Wynyates today.
© AJD, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire, today. The house was begun in the 1480s by Edmund Compton. The Comptons were Roman Catholics, so after the Reformation in the sixteenth century, secret chambers were added for hiding Roman priests from Protestant law enforcement. In 1644, during the Civil Wars, the Parliamentarians made the house their base, while the Royalist Comptons (it is said) hid in secret rooms, right under their noses, until they could make their escape.
Introduction
Compton Wynyates is a country house in Warwickshire, begun in the 1480s by Edmund Compton. The house bears the marks of the Reformation, with priest-holes for persecuted Roman clergy, and of the Civil War, with hiding places for the family and Royalist soldiers. Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I all stayed there.
Abridged.
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 itself deep down in a sequestered hollow among the woods and hills.
Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle, called “the barracks,” into which it would be possible to pack away a whole regiment of soldiers. Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called “the Devil’s chamber,” and another little chamber whose window is invariably found open in the mornings — though securely fastened on the previous night!
Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates. Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing a perfect skeleton!
Abridged.
From ‘Secret Chambers and Hiding Places’ (1901, 1904), by Allan Fea (1860-1956).
