Baddesley Clinton

Baddesley Clinton is a moated manor house in the village of Baddesley Clinton, eight miles north-west of Warwick. The house stands on a site first cleared in the 13th century when the Forest of Arden was felled for farmland. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building, owned by the National Trust. The estate includes parkland, formal gardens and ponds. The house and grounds lie within a civil parish of the same name. The house’s history begins with a Saxon named Badde, whose cattle shelter gave the place its name. After the Norman Conquest it passed through several families before becoming the seat of the Clinton family in 1290. Nicholas Brome rebuilt the parish church as penance for a crime and added gun-ports to the house. Henry Ferrers, known as ‘The Antiquary’, built the great hall and installed stained glass showing the family’s coat of arms. Later owners included the novelists Georgiana Chatterton and Edward Heneage Dering, who converted the house to Catholic use. Inside, visitors find a great hall, parlour, library and chapel with 16th-century carving and furniture. Three priest holes survive, built to hide Catholic priests during the Reformation. One hide in the roof holds six people, another is concealed behind panelling, and a third lies off the Moat Room. Outside, formal gardens surround the house, with a walled kitchen garden and a small lake in the pleasure grounds. The parkland is meadow dotted with trees, offering quiet walks among ornamental plantings.