Tudors in Warwickshire - faith, power and the Virgin Queen

Starting Point: St Mary's Guildhall, Coventry

Begin in Coventry, at one of the finest medieval guildhalls in England and a building with a direct connection to the most dramatic imprisoned queen of the Tudor age. When the Northern Rebellion threatened in 1569, Elizabeth I's councillors ordered Mary Queen of Scots moved south to safety. She arrived in Coventry and was lodged in the gatehouse adjoining St Mary's Hall - the room where she was held is still identifiable - and the building itself is one of the great Tudor interiors in the Midlands. The rare Coventry Tapestry, woven specifically for this guildhall in the Tudor period, depicts Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou in extraordinary detail. Coventry was a city deeply embedded in the royal story throughout the Tudor century - sometimes a refuge, sometimes a place of confinement - and this building sits at the centre of that story. The visit is well worth a full hour.

Note: St Mary's Guildhall is open Wednesday–Sunday, 10am–4pm.

Travel

• 14 miles, 25 minutes

Stop 2: Baddesley Clinton

The most beautiful of today's three stops, and the most deceptive. Baddesley Clinton sits on a moated island deep in what was once the Forest of Arden, its grey stone walls reflected in still water and resident ducks drifting past the gatehouse bridge - a picture of rural medieval peace. But for much of Elizabeth I's reign, this house was also one of the most active safe houses in the English Catholic underground, and the evidence is still here in the fabric of the building. The Ferrers family refused to conform to Protestantism, sheltering Catholic priests who were at constant risk of a death sentence. No fewer than three priest holes in which priests hid. A priest hole was a concealed hiding place, built into Catholic homes during the reign of Elizabeth I, when practising the faith was not only forbidden but potentially fatal. Priests moved secretly between sympathetic households, and the discovery of one could mean torture and execution. The hides had to be ingenious - tucked inside chimneys, beneath floorboards, behind panelling to escape detection.

The house today is a National Trust property and one of the most evocative Tudor interiors in Warwickshire - the oak panelling, the carved Elizabethan overmantles and the moat seen from the windows together create an atmosphere that requires very little imagination to bring to life.

Travel

• 20 miles, 30 minutes

Stop 3: Coughton Court

If Baddesley Clinton represents the quiet, hidden face of Catholic resistance, Coughton Court is its more dramatic counterpart - a house that was repeatedly, dangerously close to the centre of the most consequential events of the Tudor and early Stuart periods. The Throckmorton family have owned this estate since 1409, and for most of that time their staunch Catholicism brought them into direct conflict with the English state.

Sir George Throckmorton, who built the magnificent battlemented Tudor gatehouse around 1530, openly opposed Henry VIII's break with Rome and clashed with Cromwell over the Dissolution. His descendants were fined, imprisoned and harassed for recusancy across the generations that followed, hiding priests in the tower room and using the long views from its windows to watch for approaching priest hunters.

Among the relics on display is an embroidered cope said to have been worked by Catherine of Aragon and her ladies-in-waiting, and a linen chemise believed to have been worn by Mary Queen of Scots at her execution. The home was part of another famous plot two years after the Tudor period ended. In the early hours of 6 November 1605, Lady Digby and Father Garnet received the news that the Gunpowder plot had failed.

Travel

• 10 miles, 25 minutes

Stop 4: Kenilworth Castle & the Elizabethan Garden

Give Kenilworth a full day. It demands and rewards it completely. The castle began as a Norman fortress in the 1120s and grew through the hands of John of Gaunt into one of the great royal palaces of medieval England. In 1563 Elizabeth I gave it to Robert Dudley, the man she had known since childhood. Their relationship was the defining personal drama of the early Elizabethan court. Dudley spent years transforming Kenilworth in the hope that he might finally persuade her to marry him.

The result was the spectacular Leicester's Building built specifically for Elizabeth's use, its thin walls packed with windows in the most fashionable contemporary style and stately rooms luxuriously furnished. He also laid out an elaborate privy garden with a white marble fountain at its centre, an aviary, fragrant arbours and long walks through the surrounding landscape. And in July 1575 he used all of it for nineteen extraordinary days of entertainment - the longest stay a Tudor monarch ever made at a private subject's home. There were fireworks, masques, theatrical performances, hunting, music, dancing, bearbaiting, feasting and speeches.

The recreated Elizabethan garden - painstakingly recreated by English Heritage from a detailed eyewitness account written by a member of Dudley's household in 1575 - is one of the finest Tudor garden reconstructions in England.

All together, the ruins of the Great Hall, the Norman keep with its later Tudor windows, and the Leicester Gatehouse exhibition add layer upon layer of context. Three to four hours is the minimum; a full day is better.

Travel

• 0 miles, 2-3 minutes
• 10 minutes

Stop 5: Abbey Fields

Before heading to dinner, it's worth taking a short detour through Abbey Fields - a quietly haunting place that brings the day full circle. The open parkland you're walking through was once dominated by the great medieval abbey of St Mary, one of the most powerful religious houses in the Midlands. Its fate was sealed in 1538, when Henry VIII's Reformation came for it with particular brutality. Only fragments of the abbey survive above ground today, including the remains of a Norman archway near the pool. It's a peaceful spot now - families, dog walkers, a lake with ducks - but knowing what was erased here on royal command makes it one of the most quietly charged places in Warwickshire.

Travel

• 2 minutes

Stop 6: The Virgins and Castle

The perfect end to a Tudor day. The Virgins and Castle is thought to be Kenilworth's oldest pub, with records tracing it back to 1563 — the very year Elizabeth I granted Kenilworth Castle to her great favourite, Robert Dudley. It was known then as the Two Virgins Inn, and served as host to the Court of the Castle Manor; the locals who drank here would have watched the lavish royal entertainments play out just across the green. The atmosphere may have smartened up considerably since then, but the bones of the place are the same, and there are few better spots in Warwickshire to raise a glass to a long day of Tudor history. Today it serves good breakfasts, lunches and Sunday roasts, making it a natural final stop after a day at the castle — sit in the garden if the weather obliges and the view of the ruins across Castle Green will do the rest.