At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
cavities in the walls.

[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
the fireplace of the hall.]

[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX]

CHAPTER XV

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 hiding-place behind a sliding
panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
a like purpose.

In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
went so far as to declare that there was _another house_
beneath the foundations!

A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
House" of _Edwin Drood_. Some way along, the passage was
blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in goo