TOP 10 FORTIFIED HOUSES

Some of our most romantic old houses were built in dangerous times, when high walls offered vital protection. Dixe Wills picks his favourites

- Dixe Wills

Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire

Built in the early 14th century on the site of a Saxon manor house, Baddesley Clinton became the property of one family - the Ferrers - for 12 generations and nearly half a millennium.

Hidden deep in the Forest of Arden, Baddesley Clinton doesn't draw unwanted attention to itself. Even so, fugitive Catholic clergy fearing for their lives during the reign of Elizabeth I hid themselves still deeper in the house, using 'priest holes' created to secrete up to a dozen people. Further protection came in the shape of a crenelated tower and a walled garden for food supplies.

Prior to the Ferrers' ownership, one 15th-century resident, John Brome, added garderobes (toilets) and a sewer. He was murdered by a steward named John Herthill at London's Whitefriars church following a dispute over a mortgage. Brome's second son, Nicholas, duly despatched Herthill in a duel in 1471.

Some time later, Nicholas arrived home to find the parish priest stroking his wife's face and promptly ran him through with a sword. Seeking atonement, the murdering miscreant asked to be buried in the doorway of nearby St Michael's, so the congregation "may tread upon mee as they come into the church".

In the 19th century, the house was repaired with royalties from the novels of Georgiana Chatterton. She had married Edward Dering, 20 years her junior, who had asked her for the hand of her daughter in marriage. Hard of hearing, Georgiana thought he was proposing to her and duly accepted. nationaltrust.org.uk >

2 Blencowe Hall,

Cumbria

Don't bother trying to find the original moated manor house that Adam de Blencowe built in the 1350s because it has almost entirely disappeared.