Here’s Tim’s diary entry for day three of the Executed Queens Tour…
What a moving day we’ve had on the Executed Queens Tour today. Our day visit was to Sheffield Manor Lodge on the site of a once huge deer park around Sheffield. Although the large part of the Manor Lodge is actually in ruins, it is an amazing place to visit. First some of the history…
Mary Queen of Scots was held in these buildings and actually spent the largest part of her life in Sheffield. While there she spent much of her time doing beautifully decorative embroidery with Bess of Hardwick. We also learned about the last few weeks of the life of Cardinal Wolsey, who spent two weeks in Sheffield Manor Lodge suffering from dysentry while on his way to London under arrest. Sadly, four days after Wolsey left Sheffield, he died of the illness. Not a nice way to end your days. But we saw where he stayed and even where the “garderobe” was too.
The climax to the day was our visit to the turret house, or gate house as it was in the time while Mary was held under house arrest. This building is said to be the only roofed building in existence today which Mary would still recognise. It was most likely built while she was actually staying at Sheffield, and it is also possible that she had a design in the absolutely stunning Tudor plaster sculpted ceilings. It is so amazing that this roof is still in existence, and it looks as good as new!
Our evening event was a talk on Lady Jane Gray by Leanda de Lisle. Leanda was lovely as usual, and really helped us to understand the politics leading up to the tragic few days that Jane was queen. It was also fascinating to hear about Jane’s sisters and what happened to them both, before and after the execution of Jane. It was an amazing tale!
Tomorrow we check out of Coombe Abbey and we are off to Hever Castle in Kent. Can’t wait!
Sheffield Manor Lodge Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theanneboleynfiles/sets/72157630042176699/
Leanda de Lisle Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theanneboleynfiles/sets/72157630044417725/
As I child, I lived on Southend Road, literally 5 minutes’ walk from Manor Lodge. I spent a lot of my childhood exploring it, and it’s a place very close to my heart. It makes me happy to see others getting so much pleasure from the old place as I did. 🙂
My mum, who was brought up on the manor estate just after the war, has been up on the roof and walked on the ‘leads’. The old lady who lived in the gatehouse back then told her that Mary Queen of Scots walked the ‘leads’ at night and that she had often seen her headless ghost.
Lovely to see a muck up of what is would have been like back in the day on your Flickr set.
wish i were there…it sounds so good, moving and exciting at the same time. my friend gareth is leading the tour. was supposed to have gone this year, but we put a down payment on a house for our daughter and grandkids instead….next year I am doing something for myself…watching for upcoming tours through the abf….love myhrr
I am getting hooked on these tour diaires every day now! Thank you for sending! What a model of Mary’s embroideries being redone as a tribute to her shotlived legacy, as by the time she hit England, she was the widowed Queen Consort of France, thus no power, and had to abdicate the throne of Scotland, and only poor Queen Elizabeth would take her in – even when Mary made numerous plots against Elizabteth during her 19 years of house arrest to take the throne of England – and as Mary entered England was wearing clothes like a peasant to escape her own country and step on England’s soil.
Even Queen Elizabeth I was nice enough on the last place of captivity to keep the dangerous Mary who had tried to take her life, not even to Woodstock. as Elizabeth had been imprisoned there under Mary I, and said that it was to low even for Mary, so it was off to Fotherengay (sp?) for her last days of the Babbington Plot, and enough to finally end the world of Mary’s phyiscal exsistence.
I think the lecture on Lady Jane Grey’s siblings to have been most interesting, as I have don’t really know much about her family, except that she was the daughter of Henry VIII’s favorite and youngest sister, Mary Brandon, formerly Queen Consort of France. I have always wondered about Lady Jane’s sisters by Leanda de Lisle.What a dinner!
Off to Hever Castle with Queen Anne’s portrait with her holding the red Lancastrian Rose. Just to be at Hever at all would take my breath away! My stars! Thank you! WilesWales!
I will defend Queen Anne for as long as I am around! She was innocent of all charges against her! Queen Anne did give England one very special gift, Queen Elizabeth I! Queen Elizabeth I was the greatest absolute monarch that country ever had!
“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes:..” ~ Psalms 118:23
The correct spelling is Fotheringay.
We live about 30 minutes from the castle mound upon which the structure once stood.
It could not have been a very big building. You have the River Nene on one side as a natural defence.
Google and many other websites can elucidate you with the correct details.
Worth a brief visit as there isn’t an awful lot to see.
Whoever demolished the Castle did a very thorough job!
Good hunting,
Alistair Kewish (Mr) East Northamptonshire.
My hubby was born in Rotherham, a town close by, he took me there when we first met, a long time ago. It didn’t have the wonderful dispays and information then, just basics, but it was still wonderful to see. And the next time we visit the inlaws ,at Rotherham, I will make a point of re-visiting. We were so lucky living where we did at the time, some miles out of Rotherham, but on the borders of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Linconshire and Nottinghamshire, all seeped in history and the abundance of castles, manor-houses, abbeys, and all the colourful people that stayed in them. Its great to see photos of some of my past haunts….thank you.