Baddesley Clinton lies some eight miles to the north of Warwick, in the Forest of Arden. The beautiful moated manor house dating from the 14th century was purchased by John Broome, a wealthy lawyer, from the de Clintons in 1438. His son Nicholas died in 1517 and the manor passed to Sir Edward Ferrers, who had married his daughter Constance.
The Ferrers family remained loyal to the Catholic faith throughout the vicissitudes of the next few centuries. Edward Ferrers’s great-grandson Henry (1549-1633) was a lawyer at the Middle Temple. In 1586 he rented the house to the staunchly Catholic Anne Vaux. She and her sister Eleanor Brooksby commissioned Nicholas Owen to construct various “priest holes”. These proved their worth in 1591 when a raid was made on the house but failed to find a number of Jesuits hiding there, including Fathers Garnet and Gerard. Henry Ferrers eventually returned to the house and lived out his days there, heavily in debt, as a “Church Papist” rather than an actual recusant.
