Thursday 17 May 2012

Picture Post 5 - History.

This is Norbury Manor which stands next
to the church. The modern house dates
from the 1660s, but I gather some of the
interior is mediaeval. And it has several
ghosts, apparently.

On the other side of The Manor is the Stone House. The current 
building looks 17thC to me, but the owner tells me that the
foundations date from 1485, the year the Tudor dynasty came
to power. It's even known to have a basement that was used as
a priest hole, but nobody knows how to gain access to it
without taking up the floor. One of its previous occupants
lived out her life in Stafford Gaol as punishment for hiding
a priest there during one of the Tudor purges.

 This is Nicholas, 11th Lord Fitzherbert, who died in 1473.
His tomb is one of two at the eastern end of the church, in
front of the altar. The fact sheet recounts that he had seventeen
children, but it doesn't say who was responsible for biting
the end of his nose off.

 And this is a panel on the side of Nicholas's sarcophagus. I 
chose one that had a figure with its head missing, simply 
because I'm like that.

5 comments:

andrea kiss said...

*sigh* I wish to live close by such history.

Those houses are beautiful!

I've only ever seen images like the sarcophagus and its panel in books.

I want to move to England.

Anthropomorphica said...

The nose, that woz me, bit peckish see..
Beautiful images Jeff, quite fancy the manor house!

JJ said...

Andrea: The last village I lived in, about five miles from here, had a church which still had part of its Saxon wall intact. Pre-Bloody Normans! And when I lived in Northumberland, I did several photographic trips to Hadrian's Wall, which is even older

Mel: You can have the Manor House, if you can afford it. The National Trust rents it privately. the last time the tenancy was advertised, they wanted £2,000 a month.

Anthropomorphica said...

A snip, I'll rent 6 ;) Actually not bad, for a manor house.

JJ said...

No, it isn't. I reckon you'd get a three bed semi in London for that. The catch, though, is that you have to open to the public every Saturday between April and October.