Coughton Court is home to the Throckmorton family, and has been for over 600 years.
As we ventured along the riverside walk glimmers of sunshine gradually started appearing through the mist.
Several tributaries travel across the estates land on their way to meet up and join the R. Arrow.
In 1583, Francis Throckmorton devised a plot, being just one of a series of attempts by English Roman Catholics, to depose Queen Elizabeth l of England. They wanted to replace her with Mary Queen of Scots who at the time was being held under house arrest in Carlisle Castle. However, the plot failed as a result of intelligence and surveillance, Francis was duly arrested, and executed the following year.
When it came to the Gunpowder Plot 22 years later, the then owner of Coughton Court, Thomas Throckmorton, prudently went abroad with all of his family having first let the house out to one of the plot's chief conspirators, Sir Everard Digby. Apart from acting as a safe house for Jesuit priests, it was also used for hoarding arms, ammunition and horses, ready for the uprising that was meant to follow the assassination of James l and his Government.
At the back of the house is an Elizabethan style garden courtyard, which was designed by the then owner Clare McLaren-Throckmorton and her daughter Christina in 1992. It's an attractive area, which admirably compliments the surrounding Tudor architecture.
This is the oldest part of the house - 1536, but it is flanked by later wings designed in what became known as Strawberry Hill Gothic, popularised by Horace Walpole.
click here to see Walpole's house
