ER V

HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE

We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL]

[Illustration: HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]

Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.

A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
Hood's _Haunted House_ or Poe's _House of Usher_ stands
before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
to pieces. Its very history appears to b