 Moseley Old Hall
When Charles II arrived at Moseley Old Hall in 1651, he would have found a delightful
half-timbered house remotely situated in dense woodland. Today the Old
Hall takes on a very different appearance, with the timberwork having
been clad in red brick, and the surrounding area being almost swallowed
up by the spreading environs of Wolverhampton.
Built in 1600 by Henry Pitt,
it was the home of the Whitgreaves, a local Staffordshire family descended
from generations of lawyers and MPs. Mostly Catholics and Royalists, as
were so many of the influential families in the Midlands during this period,
the most noted Whitgreave was Thomas 'the Preserver'. It was with his
assistance that Charles II was able to continue the journey that eventually
led to his exile in France for eight years. Following a wet, cold trek
during the night from Boscobel House, Thomas greeted a very weary and hungry
Charles at daybreak. Offered dry clothes, food, and a proper bed, he was
secreted in the priest hole at Moseley Old Hall for two days whilst planning
the route for his escape. The original four-poster bed used by Charles
stands in the King's room, a room that was formerly occupied by the family's
Catholic priest, and an informative exhibition containing books and miscellaneous
items in connection with the fugitive King's escape has been set up in
the Dressing Room.
Arranged on three floors,
there is public access to a large part of the house, and several pictures
of Charles II are displayed throughout, constantly reminding
the visitor of Moseley Old Hall's vital part in the making of our history. In Mr
Whitgreave's room, a portrait of Thomas as a young man is proudly hung
over the fireplace, and from his first floor study Thomas watched Charles'
devastated, beaten army beginning their retreat to Scotland. The prominence
of heavy exposed timbers, dark wood panelling, and hefty pieces of oak
furniture, overpower the house in a dingy, but eerily atmospheric way
which is relieved only slightly by the brighter attic rooms and the
chapel. A lovely view of the reconstructed Knot Garden can be had from
the little bedroom window on the top floor.
Descendants of the Whitgreave
family owned the house until 1925, and during that time made few structural
changes, apart from encasing Moseley Old Hall with brick walls and replacing the
Elizabethan windows in the 1870s. After the 1820s, it appears to have
been abandoned as the family home, in favour of Moseley Court, a new Regency
style house built for George Whitgreave. Used as a farmhouse until the
onset of the Second World War, Moseley Old Hall had been stripped of nearly
all its contents, and was suffering badly from subsidence and general
neglect by the time the National Trust assumed responsibility for the
property in 1962. Now fully restored, and furnished with generous donations
relative to the period of the house, Moseley Old Hall offers a fair representation
of the house that was once visited by Charles II in his desperate hour of need. |
