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Donington le Heath Manor House Museum, now 'The 1620s House and Garden at Donington le Heath' is a surviving example of a manor house built over seven hundred years ago in Donington le Heath, near the town of Coalville, Leicestershire. It was once owned by a relative of one of the Gunpowder plotters, and is now managed by Leicestershire County Council. 52°42′36.22″N1°22′46.75″W / 52.7100611°N 1.3796528°W
The Museum is accredited by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)
The museum is based in a medieval manor house, believed to date back to around 1290. From the style of the architecture of the parts of the building and from tree-ring dating of some of the timbers still present, the present house at Donington was probably built between 1288 and 1295.
A house on this site and the present building were owned by the Charley Priory, then Ulverscroft Priory until the 1530s and several tenants are known to have lived there during this time, including Robert and Isabella de Herle, who probably built the present house.
Some of the features of the house, along with tree-ring dating of the timbers in the roof, show that the Manor House was heavily modernised around 1618. It appears that at this time, the downstairs storerooms were converted into a kitchen and a parlour. A new roof was put on and the rooms upstairs were remodelled with a new internal staircase. Externally, the most obvious addition from this period are the large rectangular mullioned windows. At this time, the house was probably owned by John Digby of Seaton, whose nephew, Sir Everard Digby was a friend of Robert Catesby and was executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot.
From 1670 to 1960, the house was rented out as a tenant farm, with proceeds going to support a hospital and Orphanage in Osgathorpe. Leicestershire County Council bought the Manor House in 1965 after it had become a pig farm and fallen into disrepair. A large project was then undertaken to preserve the building for future generations. The Manor House was opened as a museum in 1973.
Donington le Heath Manor House was tenanted by members of the Digby family from the early 15th century and they owned the site and its lands from the 1530s until 1627. The Digby's main seat was at Tilton on the Hill in east Leicestershire, but they held land in many other parishes. Sir John Digby fought at the Bosworth Battlefield in 1485 for Henry Tudor. When Henry defeated King Richard III and became King Henry VII he would have rewarded his supporters and it may be the case that he gave back the lands that the Digbys had lost in 1462 for their opposition to the Yorkist King Edward IV. In the early 1600s the property was owned by John Digby of Seaton. John was a known recusant Catholic and he and his family were regularly fined and excommunicated from the Church of England. While John himself had been imprisoned in the Tower of London under suspicion of involvement n the Babington Plot against Elizabeth I, his nephew, Sir Everard Digby, had moved away having married a wealthy heiress in Buckinghamshire and had become a friend of Robert Catesby, the leader of the Gunpowder Plotters. Sir Everard was asked to raise a Midlands rebellion after the Plotters had blown up Parliament and he was intending to kidnap the Princess Elizabeth, James I's daughter, from Coombe Abbey. He was hung drawn and quartered in 1606 for being one of the Catholic Plotters. John Digby died in 1627 and the Donington site was divided up between two families.
In 2016 the Site was refurbished as the 1620s House and Garden telling the story of the Catholic Digbys living in Protestant England. All the rooms are fully furnished as they might have been at the time and the mixture of original and replica furniture and household objects can be touched and used - with one exception. An ornately carved four poster bed has been connected with Leicester's Blue Boar Inn at which Richard III is thought to have stayed just before the Battle of Bosworth and has therefore been known as King Dick's Bed. Its style suggests a much later date than 1485 however, and it fits perfectly into a Jacobean family home.[ citation needed ]
The Friends organisation for Donington exists to support the museum's further development through fundraising, and funds much of the work in the gardens. The Friends of Donington le Heath Manor House is a Registered charity Number 1084997.
Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated in York; his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic.
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was an unsuccessful attempted regicide against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of English Roman Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who considered their actions attempted tyrannicide and who sought regime change in England after decades of religious persecution.
Robert Catesby was the leader of a group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Warwickshire, Catesby was educated at Oxford University. His family were prominent recusant Catholics, and presumably to avoid swearing the Oath of Supremacy he left college before taking his degree. He married a Protestant in 1593 and fathered two children, one of whom survived birth and was baptised in a Protestant church. In 1601 he took part in the Essex Rebellion but was captured and fined, after which he sold his estate at Chastleton.
William Catesby was one of Richard III of England's principal councillors. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House of Commons during Richard's reign. The Catesbys’ medieval wealth derived from livestock and the zenith of their political achievement came during his career.
Robert Wintour and Thomas Wintour, also spelt Winter, were members of the Gunpowder Plot, a failed conspiracy to assassinate King James I. Brothers, they were related to other conspirators, such as their cousin, Robert Catesby, and a half-brother, John Wintour, also joined them following the plot's failure. Thomas was an intelligent and educated man, fluent in several languages and trained as a lawyer, but chose instead to become a soldier, fighting for England in the Low Countries, France, and possibly in Central Europe. By 1600, however, he changed his mind and became a fervent Catholic. On several occasions he travelled to the continent and entreated Spain on behalf of England's oppressed Catholics, and suggested that with Spanish support a Catholic rebellion was likely.
Ambrose Rookwood was a member of the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to replace the Protestant King James I with a Catholic sovereign. Rookwood was born into a wealthy family of Catholic recusants, and educated by Jesuits in Flanders. His older brother became a Franciscan, and his two younger brothers were ordained as Catholic priests. Rookwood became a horse-breeder. He married the Catholic Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, and had at least two sons.
Sir Everard Digby was a member of the group of provincial members of the English nobility who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Although he was raised in an Anglican household and married a Protestant, Digby and his wife were secretly received into the strictly illegal and underground Catholic Church in England by the Jesuit priest Fr. John Gerard. In the autumn of 1605, he made a Christian pilgrimage to the shrine of St Winefride's Well in Holywell, Wales. About this time, he met Robert Catesby, who was planning to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder as an alleged act of tyrannicide and a decapitation strike against King James I. Catesby then planned to lead a popular uprising aimed at regime change, through which a Catholic monarch would be placed upon the English throne.
Ashby St Ledgers is a village in the West Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England. The post town is Rugby in Warwickshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 173. The Manor House is famous for being a location for the planning of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. As of 2023, the property had been restored and could be rented for a fee.
Lapworth is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England, which had a population of 2,100 according to the 2001 census; this had fallen to 1,828 at the 2011 Census. It lies seven miles (11 km) south of Solihull and ten miles (16 km) northwest of Warwick, and incorporates the hamlet of Kingswood. Lapworth boasts a historic church, the Church of St Mary the Virgin, a chapel. Two National Trust sites are nearby: Baddesley Clinton, a medieval moated manor house and garden located in the village of Baddesley Clinton; and Packwood House, a Tudor manor house and yew garden with over 100 trees in Packwood.
Robert Keyes (1565–1606) was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a conspiracy to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605. He was the sixth man to join the plot.
Maxstoke Castle is a privately owned moated castle dating from the 14th century, situated to the north of Maxstoke in Warwickshire, England.
This is a list of Sheriffs and High Sheriffs of Leicestershire, United Kingdom. The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred elsewhere or are now defunct, so that its functions are now largely ceremonial. Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974 the office previously known as Sheriff was retitled High Sheriff. The High Sheriff changes every March.
Thomas Bates was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
John Grant was a member of the failed Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to replace the Protestant King James I of England with a Catholic monarch. Grant was born around 1570, and lived at Norbrook in Warwickshire. He married the sister of another plotter, Thomas Wintour. Grant was enlisted by Robert Catesby, a religious zealot who had grown so impatient with James's lack of toleration for Catholics that he planned to kill him, by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder. Grant's role in the conspiracy was to provide supplies for a planned Midlands uprising, during which James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, would be captured. However, on the eve of the planned explosion, Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the explosives the plotters had positioned in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and arrested.
Humphrey Littleton, or Humphrey Lyttelton, was a member of the Lyttelton family, who was executed for his involvement in the Gunpowder plot. Robert Wintour and Stephen Lyttelton who had escaped from the fight at Holbeche House were captured at Hagley Park on 9 January 1606 despite Littleton's protests that he was not harbouring anyone. It was Littleton who told the authorities that Edward Oldcorne was hiding at Hindlip Hall after he had given him mass. Wintour, Oldcorne, and both Littletons were all executed.
Sandon Hall is a 19th-century country mansion, the seat of the Earl of Harrowby, at Sandon, Staffordshire, 5 miles (8.0 km) northeast of Stafford. It is a Grade II* listed building set in 400 acres (1.6 km2) of parkland.
Hugglescote is a village on the River Sence in North West Leicestershire, England. The village is about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the centre of Coalville, and its built-up area is now contiguous with the town.
Donington le Heath is a village on the River Sence just over 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the centre of Coalville in North West Leicestershire. Donington is contiguous with the village of Hugglescote immediately to the east. The population of the village is included in the civil parish of Hugglescote and Donington le Heath.
Kenelm Digby of Stoke Dry, Rutland was an English politician. He was first elected MP for Stamford in 1539 and Sheriff of Rutland in 1541.
St Andrew's Church is a church in Stoke Dry, Rutland. It is a Grade I listed building.