Oxburgh Hall

Just 20 minutes outside of King's Lynn is a the village of Oxborough.  And it is in that village that you will find the moated manor house Oxburgh Hall.

Oxburgh Hall was built in around 1482 by Sir Edmund Bedingfeld.  It has stayed in the family ever since.  The Bedingfeld's played host to King Henry VII here in August of 1487.  The room where he stayed has been called the King's Room ever since.

The Bedingfeld's were of the Catholic faith.  And this was during the time when England had split and saw the King as the head of the church instead of the Pope.  Apparently the Bedingfeld's didn't agree with that and stuck with their faith.  It must have been for this reason that they had created what is known as a priest hole in the house.   In the event of a raid, the priest would access the hole via a trap door.  When the doors were shut it blends in with the tile on the floor.  These were pretty common back then.  It is one of the few priest hole that you can still crawl into.

There is also a collection of needlework hangings done by Mary, Queen of Scots.  She worked on these while she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, following her escape to England.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to see any of this.  The house closes for 5 months during the winter.  And of course it doesn't open back up until April...when I will be back in the good ol' U.S. of A.  But I was still able to wander around the grounds.  The tea room and gift shops were open, which are both in house, so at least I got to see a little of the inside.

   

The house also has a private chapel on the grounds.  The Roman Catholic Chapel of the Immaculate Conception and St. Margaret was in 1836.  I'm not sure if it is open to the public and if it is, it was of course closed just as the house was.

 

Besides being a bit disappointed for not having the chance to tour the house itself, I still had a really nice time here.  I spent several hours just wondering around the grounds.  The estate has a number of woodland trails and several gardens.  A couple of the trails even have activities for kids to do along the way.  I was actually having fun myself trying to find all the different items that they had posted around the grounds.

One thing that I thought was really interesting was the sundial that is on the house.  I couldn't really find much information about it when I was writing this, but thought you might at least enjoy seeing a picture of it.

I highly recommend visiting here, even if it is during the winter months.  I hear that seeing it with snow on the ground is not to be missed.  If and when it does snow, I think I will make another visit!