Priest Hole at haithwaite

A Priest Hole in Nicholforest?
By Carole Somerville

In 2003, Ken and Irene Waring discovered what could be a secret priest hole when knocking down a wall in their house. There has always been talk of a priest hole at Haithwaite Farm and the brickwork surrounding the hole certainly looks as if it could be 16th century in origin. So, what IS a priest hole? Why did houses have these strange hiding places? Why did priests and people who followed their own preferred religion need to hide their religious beliefs?

Irene Waring wanted was a little more cupboard space to house their wellies and outdoor gear. There’d always been talk of a secret priest hole in their house and after knocking down an inside wall, Ken and Irene were amazed and excited to find that the rumours could well be true. The next day, they invited Chester Forster who used to run the local Heritage Society and myself to come to see it.
  Although now an inside wall, it is clear that the wall surrounding what we think is a priest hole (which is approximately three foot square) is an outside wall, probably 16th Century. The opening we looked through had been a blocked in window (all the stone and rubble cleared out by Ken) and the opposite wall would have been where a large piece of furniture will have hidden the entrance to the priest hole.
  The farm itself was once an ancient Peel tower, dating back, we think to around 1500. And to understand why the house has a secret priest hole, let’s take a look at religion in England in the 1500s:

Religion in the 1500s

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Church and state were one, in the person of the monarch. The king was ‘Defender of the Faith’ and in a position to enforce piety (godliness). Religion was universally regarded as the basis of a well-ordered society and the preservation of religious unity was considered essential for the survival of the State itself.
Perhaps we should start with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This was the closing of 655 monasteries, 90 colleges and 2,374 chanceries and free chapels by Henry VIII, beginning in 1536.
  The public was told that there would be no more need for taxes, if the abbeys went to the king. This was total fabrication! They were also led to believe that monasteries were ‘dens of iniquity and illiteracy.’ – Some were, but not all of them. Eight cathedrals and six abbeys were exempted but even they were looted. St Cuthbert’s Shrine in Durham was destroyed in 1537 and his body reburied in a plain tomb in 1542.
 In 1500 there had been ten thousand monks and two thousand nuns in 825 religious houses. There were approx. 138 nunneries in England.
  Edward VI’s Book of Common Prayer in English came into use on Whitsunday 1549. It set forth the liturgy – order of worship – while the ‘forty two Articles’ embodied the theological doctrine of the new church. Under a 1550 statute, all Catholic service books were to be destroyed and possession of one was punishable by a fine and imprisonment. In 1551 all altars were supposed to be replaced by communion tables. Although under Queen Mary, England briefly returned to the Catholic fold, the ‘Elizabethan settlement’ of 1559 permanently established the Anglican Church as the Church of England. PAGE TWO