You may know Harvington as a stunning Elizabethan Manor House, but its origins go back much further.

Harvington’s imposing moat and artificial island can be traced back to the 13th-century, making them even older than the bulk of the 14th-century building work that still, amazingly, survives behind a layer of brick. Visitors will be interested to learn that the Hall’s centre block was most probably the “solar” of a typical H-shaped timber-framed building. But there is more to the Hall than its physical foundations. 

The history of Harvington is steeped in the stories of those who lived in it. Adam de Herywnton (Harvington) lived here, and almost certainly died here in March 1344. Upon his death, the estate passed into the hands of the Earls of Warwick and in 1529 was sold to a wealthy lawyer, Sir John Pakington. For those wondering about Pakington, we have documentation to say that he was provided with a special grant by Henry VIII, permitting him to wear his hat in the King's presence! 

It wasn’t until Sir John’s great-nephew, Humphrey Pakington, inherited the estate in 1578 that the Elizabethan Manor we know and love today came into being.

Despite its impressive scale, Harvington is currently only half its original size as two additional wings were demolished c1700. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly why this happened, but we do know that in 1595 the Hall was described as ‘Humphrey’s Mansion House of Harvington’. 

Being Catholic, Humphrey was subject to the harsh penal laws of the Elizabethan age. Humphrey was a recusant, meaning he refused to attend the Church of England service on Sundays, a refusal that initially cost 12p a week but increased to £20 a month (equating to around £4000 today). From 1585 it was illegal for a Catholic priest to step foot in England, making it necessary for Humphrey to equip Harvington with impressive priest holes, which visitors can see today. We don’t know the full story of these priest holes but we do know that some of them were almost certainly the handiwork of the master carpenter Nicholas Owen.  

After Humphrey died in 1631, Harvington was the dower house of his wife Abigail. In 1657 she died, leaving the Hall to her daughter Lady Mary Yate. We know that Mary moved back into her family home and died at Harvington in 1696 at the age of 85.  

During the reign of Elizabeth I, wealthy Catholics had to come up with ingenious ways of keeping priests safe from the priest hunters, a group of men often led by the local Justice of the peace with a signed warrant allowing them to search the house for any fugitives.  

Priest hides, more commonly known as priest holes, were secret hiding places built within the house for a priest to hide, sometimes for over a week! Conditions would be cramped, cold and dark. As you explore Harvington Hall, imagine the terrifying sounds of the priest hunters pulling up floorboards and stripping back panelling. Imagine how the priests would have felt knowing that when the house fell silent, the priest hunters were waiting to hear any sound. It was a real-life game of hide-and-seek, often with harrowing consequences.  

Harvington has the country’s finest collection of hides, seven in total. Some are basic in design, others are some of the most ingenious in the country. 

The hides situated around the Great Staircase c.1603 show all the trademarks of master hides builder Nicholas Owen, who was at work from 1588 until his own capture and death in the Tower of London in 1606. 

Owen was a servant to Fr Henry Garnet, the Jesuit superior in England, who during the 1590s built up a network of safe houses throughout the country to which incoming priests could be directed and find disguises, chapels and priest holes. 

The centre of this operation for Worcestershire and the Welsh Marches was Hindlip, the home of Humphrey’s friend Thomas Habington, where the Jesuit Edward Oldcorne arrived in 1590. It was there that Garnet, Owen and Oldcorne were all captured in 1606, just after the Gunpowder Plot. The 12-day search at Hindlip is the longest on record.