Moseley Old Hall, The House That Saved A King

With a beautifully bright start to the day, on New Year's Eve Jon & I headed over to our nearest National Trust property, Moseley Old Hall, as I wanted to see it shimmering with frost in the Winter sunshine.

And I wasn't disappointed! 

Charles II - John Michael Wright c.1676

Known as The House That Saved A King, this compact Elizabethan farmhouse on the outskirts of Wolverhampton famously offered shelter to King Charles II after he fled Cromwell's troops following defeat at The Battle of Worcester. I first visited as an eight year old schoolgirl and, being a bit odd, quickly became obsessed with Charles, avidly compiling a scrapbook of anything I could find relating to him. Mind you, look at him, what a rockstar! A couple of years later I was devastated to discover than I was a descendant of Oliver Cromwell..

The estate was originally owned by the Cordsall family until it was purchased by Henry Pitt, a wealthy wool merchant, in 1583. He constructed the hall in around 1600, a half-timbered building located in remote woodland. On his death in 1602, the hall was inherited by his daughter Alice, who later married affluent lawyer, Thomas Whitgreave from nearby Stafford. 

After his defeat at Worcester on 3rd September, 1651, Charles II went on the run from Cromwell's Parliamentarians. He arrived at the back door of Moseley Old Hall on 8th September, cold and wet and disguised in a workman's clothing with shoes so ill-fitting that his feet were bleeding. He was welcomed by Thomas and Alice, Thomas's mother and John Huddleston, the family's Catholic priest. Charles was given dry clothes, food and his first bed since fleeing the Battle of Worcester. Huddleston cleaned and bandaged the king's feet.  

Charles was hidden in the hall's priest hole (below) on the afternoon of 8th September whilst a confrontation between Thomas and the Parliamentarians took place outside. 

He left the house two days later accompanied by Huddleston. 

Subsequent generations of the Whitgreave family continued to live at Moseley Old Hall until the 1820s when they moved to a larger property nearby. Few structural changes were made until 1870, when the outer walls of the building were replaced by bricks, the original Elizabethan windows repaced by the more fashionable Victorian casements and a first floor corridor added. The Whitgreaves sold the property in 1925 and after use as a farmhouse, it gradually fell into disrepair. Moseley Old Hall was then purchased by the Walsall businessman, Will Wiggin, in 1940. He started to repair the house, reinstating many of the original Tudor features, but the Second World War interupted the work and Wiggin was unable to complete the restorations before his death. The Wiggin family transferred the ownership of the Hall and an acre of land to the National Trust in 1962. 

The estate contains a restored Elizabethan knot garden, a kitchen garden, an orchard, a pond and woodland.

The woodland is magical with all manner of exciting things for children to explore or to use to build themselves dens...and great fun for big kids like us, too! 

The National Trust opened Moseley Old Hall to the public in 1963. At the time the hall was nearly empty of furniture, but over the years the furnishings and pictures have been lent from other properties or donated by the public, however, the four-poster bed where Charles II slept is the original and still stands in what is known as The King's Room. 

Although the National Trust would have to sort the heating out first, Jon & I would be very happy living here, Tudor interiors with their luxurious tapestries, leaded windows and dark wood are so comforting and cosy, you can see why William Morris was so inspired by the period. 

Charles II slept here! 

I loved seeing the herbs drying and the handwritten notes explaining their uses in Elizabethan households. Apparently lemon balm drunke in wine, it comforts the heart and driveth away all melancholy, although I'm not sure if that's the effect of the lemon balm or the alcohol! 

Fennel, which grows like a weed in our garden, is good the break the winde.The seed, boiled in wine, is good for those that are bit by serpent and the leaves, seeds and roots can make people lean that are too fat. 

Chatting to the gardener, in return for small donation, we were encouraged to take a few pots of feverfew (from the Latin, febrifugia meaning "fever reducer") which was commonly used by the Tudors as a herbal remedy to treat colds, fevers, headaches and inflammatory conditions like arthritis (something Jon and I both need help with!)  

Moseley Old Hall

Moseley Old Hall Lane, 

Fordhouses, 

Wolverhampton

WV10 7HY

Opening times HERE

Walk Out To Winter - Revisiting The Shugborough Estate

Having ventured no further than the corner shop for days, on Sunday we dusted off our National Trust cards and headed across the border to Staffordshire for a Winter walk.

At just over a twenty mile drive from home, we visit the Shugborough regularly but here's a brief history just in case you've missed my previous blog posts. 

Built on the site of a moated medieval bishop's castle, Shugborough was bought by the wealthy Anson family in 1624 for £4,000 (a fortune at the time) but it was torn down in 1693 to create a more fashionable country house. The building was enlarged in 1745 creating the Georgian mansion which stands today.

Thomas Anson (1695 - 1773) inherited Shugborough from his brother, George, who was formerly the First Lord of the Admiralty. Originally trained in law, Thomas abandoned this and decided, like many of the wealthy young men of the time, to take The Grand Tour. After his travels around Europe, Thomas came home with his head full of the beautiful sights he'd encountered on his travels with a wish to make Shugborough his own perfect paradise. His landscape creation was ground-breaking as it included some of the first neo-Greek structures in the country by architect Thomas Wright.

After Thomas's death, the family fortune leaked through the hands of his grandson, also called Thomas (1795 - 1854), who gambled his vast inheritance away. In 1842 the contents of the estate was auctioned to raise funds. In 1960, in lieu of his grandfather's death duties, the 5th Earl, the celebrated society photographer Patrick Lichfield, gave the Shugborough estate to the National Trust. For many years it was looked after by Staffordshire County Council until the National Trust took over the administration in 2019. The estate is still occupied by the Earls of Lichfield and has a working farm and several varieties of rare breeds of livestock.

Including these teddy bear-faced sheep.

This sign never fails to make us laugh.

Inspired by the Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes in Athens, the Tower of the Winds was built in 1765 and once sat in the centre of the village pond until modified in 1805 to house a dairy for Lady Anson. We've visited the Horologion in Athens and it really is a perfect replica. 

If you think you're experiencing déjà vu, you're not - whenever we come back from Shugborough I look through the photos of our previous visits and they're almost identical - the only difference is the weather and what we're wearing (although I've worn the same coat for the past three years!) 

The Ruin, built in 1750, once stood next to a colonnade which was swept away by a great flood in 1795.

The Chinese House was built in 1747 and designed to celebrate George Anson’s visit to China and his triumphal return to Britain. It was based on original sketches taken from garden architecture Anson and his crew saw in Guangzhou (formerly Canton) in 1742. The scheme, which also incorporated two Chinese style bridges and a boat house was one of the first garden buildings in Britain to reflect the fashion of Chinoiserie. 

The Cat’s Monument is thought to be created in around 1750 and believed to either commemorate George Anson’s cat or Thomas’ Persian Cat, Kouli Khan. 

Erected in 1814 and cast in the nearby town of Rugeley, the not very imaginatively named Blue Bridge created a welcome splash of colour.

Built some time between 1748 and 1756, the Shepherd's Monument bears what has become known as The Shugborough Inscription, a mysterious sequence of letters carved on a lower plane and said to be one of the world's top uncracked cypher texts. Based on the brief reference made to the monument in the pseudo historical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, some believe that there could be a connection between the monument and the Holy Grail. 

The only woman not dressed in a waxed jacket or a puffa coat, I was inundated with compliments and even got hugged by a young woman who told me that my outfit had made her day! 

The Essex Bridge, straddling the River Trent, is a Grade I listed packhorse bridge, built in the late 16th century by Elizabeth I's favourite, the Duke of Essex, who lived nearby. 

Built in 1760, the Doric Temple is a copy of the Temple of Hemphaistos in Athens and again we can verify that it's remarkably similar. 

The cold was starting to bite so we skipped the boathouse and looped back to the mansion discovering with delight that the servants quarters were open. In all the years we've been visiting Shugborough we've only managed to get inside the house once! 

There was a list of rules for the staff on display, no eye contact, no conversation, reminders to allow their betters right of way if they encounter them in a corridor and anything dropped by the family to be placed on a silver salver before offering it back. Women were reminded that followers were not allowed on the estate and any females caught fraternising would be instantly dismissed (no mention of the male staff...) 

It would have been okay for Jon if he'd been around then, his lot were gentry. My Dad's side of the family were miners for generations and Staffordshire working class, as women didn't go down the pits, domestic drudgery would have been my life!

I love how the tree was decorated with copper baubles echoing the jelly moulds and saucepans.

After a final circuit around the kitchen garden, our legs stretched and cheeks rosy - we headed back for a picnic in the car.

Wishing everyone who visits my blog, reads and comments (or just lurks in the background) a very Happy New Year.

Thanks for being there, see you in 2026!

Much love,

Vix & Jon

xxx