 Fel oedd yn cyflaes, dyma. Fy enw i'n gwybod i'n gwybod i'r holl o Aepthorpe. Aepthorpe Palace wedi bod yn cyd-feydd. Mae'n gweithio'r adnod apthorpe. Mae'n gweithio'r adnod apthorpe, oherwydd mae'n gweithio'r adnod aphaf 13 oed. Mae'r adnod, ond rydw i'n gweithio'r adnod apthorpe a apthorpe. Mae'n gweithio'r adnod. Mae'n gweithio'r adnod aphaf. Aepthorpe yn Nôr Fhamtonshire yw'r adnod aphaf, yn gweithio'r adnod aphaf 1622-4, ac yn gweithio'r adnod aphaf 15 oed, yn cymdeithasol yn 11 oed, ac yn ddweud o'r ffawr o Gerdd Gerdd, oed yn ddweud o'r ddweud o'r Buckingham oed yn 1614. Mae'n gweithio'r adnod aphaf 1470 oed yn uwch drwy ministeriaeth Gerdd, ac oed yn engage lunch pasaeth sydd yn gweithu yn 1751 oedd, fel yпeth bod chi houru unionisiau Ff safely lists. Mae'r adnod aphylai gyda Alst ABS yma dogwl, and forms the core of the present day building. So here's the house and this is the hall range and this is the north range of the gate house here. Here's the villaage and there's Hay proportion church. In the absence of any late 15th or early 16th centry documentary references to the house much of what I shall be describing this evening is derived from a detailed investigation of the building's fabric. English heritage now historic England ac yn cael ei gwaith i'w gwneud o'r perioedau ffeyddol ar y cerddiau yma ar 2013. Y gwaith ei gael amddangos i fynd wedi'i chysylltu'r hollau wedi'i gweithio'r gwneud o'r drwyfyniaeth amddangos i'r hollegau yma yn 2004, i'r gofyniaethol i gael a'u gwneud o'r hollegau ei gwaith yn ôl – y ffeyddol ar gyfer hynny, sy'n cael ei gwneud o'r hollegau yn y monograff, o'r hollegau, ystod o'r hwnnw i'r holleg yma, ynglyn â'r bethau yn ysgolio'r newid yn ymweld â'r bethau ynglyn arnym, ac mae'r ysgolio'r cwpio'r ysgolio yn ymweld â'r bethau yn y bwysig, a'r ffordd oed, nad yw'n ymweld â'r bethau yn ymweld, yn ymweld â'r ffordd o'r bethau cyffredinol, yn ym 40 pwn yn ymweld â'r 50 pwn, pan mae'n ffraeg o'r pwysig, ac mae'n gwybod. Mae'n cydweithio'r bobl yn amser am y tîm effett, I want to thank my co-authors Catherine Mine trendy Emily Colle Nick Hill and Pete Smith who are here for their thoughts and insights on the early history of the house. The research that took place alongside and helped and formed a programme of repairs to the house and culminated in the sale of a private owner, Jean-Christophe Isier, Baron von Fethon in 2014. As a condition of the sale, the house is open to the public by English heritage, so that people can watch the continuing restoration of the building by the new owners. The house lies on the southern edge of the village of Aitthorpe in north-eastern Northamptonshire. Importantly, in terms of understanding why the house came to be built where it is, Aitthorpe was located in the Bailiwick of Cliff, one of the three administrative divisions within the Royal Forest of Rockingham, which, by the mid-fifteenth century, had been greatly reduced through clearance. 1.4 miles to the north was the King's Manor of Cliff, today known as King's Cliff. One importantly for this story, 2.6 miles to the south-east lay the family home of the ruling York dynasty at Fotheringhay Castle. Fotheringhay, there's Aitthorpe in the green and there's Fotheringhay. The village is surrounded by good arable land that has been farmed since the Iron Age. There is strong evidence for Romano-British occupation of the area, highlighted by the discovery of foundations of a Romano-British villa with mosaic floors 500 metres south of the house in 1859. Overlaying this are medieval open fields with remains of region furrow cultivation, respecting an established ancient trackway, which runs north to south on the west side of the house, and is one of the oldest surviving features in the landscape. This 1947 aerial photograph shows some of those features, so down here at A is the site of the, this is the house here, here is the site of the Roman villa, here are the medieval field systems at C, and B is the ancient trackway that I mentioned that runs up past the house and on up in this direction. Aitthorpe form part of an Anglo-Saxon royal estate, and the manor continued to be held by the crown after the Norman conquest, with a tenancy being granted to various individuals for services rendered, and at other times taken back into royal hands either as a punishment or to augment the exchequer. There is little evidence that any of these tenants lived at Aitthorpe, with the possible exception of a Sir Richard Dalton, who in the early 15th century, may have occupied a manor house described in the mid 16th century as in ruins. It was probably located close to the church. Indeed Dalton may well have been responsible for the construction of St Leonard's Church, which we now know from dendro chronology was built in the period 1412 to 37, rather than in the late 15th century as previously supposed. A variety of dates have been put forward for the construction of the house. 19th century historians and land agents ascribed it to the mid 13th century, on the basis of a fireplace of that date which no longer exists. This fireplace was located above the dairy in a service wing, which you can see on the right hand side of the slide, which was built by Walston around 1476. The fireplace is highly likely to have come from elsewhere, either the earlier manor house or fathering hay castle, which was demolished in the 17th century. Lady Rose Weigol, a granddaughter of the 11th Earl of Westmoreland, thought that the builder of the house was her ancestor, Sir Walter Mildmay, while J.A. Goch attributed it to the Dalton family in the early 15th century. All of these writers seem not to have had access to an account of the history of the house produced by a local clergyman, the Reverend Henry K. Bonnie in about 1828, whose account was evidently based on access to architectural drawings and an investigation of the fabric of the house itself. It was Bonnie who correctly identified the builder as Guy Walston. This is one of a series of six watercolours by a Bedford artist called Bradford Rudge, and it shows an imaginary Elizabethan scene, but it shows the view inside the main courtyard. But virtually everything that's in that picture is actually part of the Walston house, obviously much earlier than the Elizabethan period. In the late 20th century, the history of the house was further refined in the 1984 RCHME inventory volume, and by Hewyd and Taylor in their book The Country Houses of Northamptonshire. He was born by Walston, and how did he come to build his new house on the outskirts of Aepthorke village? He was born around 1435 and was a son of William Woolston, a squire, of hall manner Wooliston, Northamptonshire, which lies 22 miles south of Aepthorke. William was a member of the household of Richard Plantagenet, Third Duke of York, claimant to the English throne and the richest of the king's subjects. As a young man, William Woolston had served as principal Edward, Second Duke of York, the founder of Fotheringhay College, who died at Agincourt in 1415. To be close to the Duke's principal seat from 1429 to 1447, William Woolston leased Elton Hall, shone here, less than two miles east of Fotheringhay, and it was at Elton that Guy Woolston was likely to have been raised. While living at Elton, William Woolston was joint signatory with Thomas Peckin, clerk and master of Fotheringhay College, to an agreement made on behalf of the Duke with William Horwood, a mason of Fotheringhay to build the nave, aisles and west tower of the collegiate church at Fotheringhay. What you see here is basically what was set out in that contract, the earlier part of the church which was basically the Chancellor's area was demolished in the 1570s. In the contract, William Woolston has described as a commissary or deputy of Richard of York. His status as a senior and trusted member of the Magnate's household was confirmed two years later when with eight senior figures he was invested as a trustee of an array of castles, lordships and manas held by the Duke. Guy Woolston followed in his father's footsteps by entering the Duke's service. Richard of York's widow, Cecilyne Neville, continued to live at Fotheringhay Castle after her husband's death at Wakefield in 1460 and his son Edward's accession to the throne in 1461. She may have been responsible for Guy Woolston's appointment in 1464 as constable of Fotheringhay and keeper of Fotheringhay Great Park. This is a detail from a map of 1641 which shows Fotheringhay, the church and the castle and part of the Great Park. The award of these important and lucrative offices is evidence of the esteem in which Woolston was held by the Yorks. The reference to the award in the patent rolls which is the earliest known documentary reference to Guy Woolston specifically acknowledges the service rendered by him to the King and his father. Whether this service was administrative or in a military capacity or both is unknown. In the role of constable, Woolston must have played a significant part in the King's substantial building works of 1463-9 at the castle and in hosting a visit by Edward IV to his family home in 1469. It's possible that Woolston and his family were accommodated in the castle in the period 1464-70 but there's no firm evidence for this. In 1466 Woolston was likely to have had personal contact with Edward IV who's portrait incidentally is on the wall to my left when Woolston was made an usher of the chamber. This was an important office which with three other gentlemen ushers reported to the Chamberlain William Lord Hastings, a senior figure in overall charge of the chamber. Gentleman ushers were usually members of the gentry, probably employed on a rotor basis to perform a range of duties including attending at mealtimes, keeping records of food, drinks, fuel and lighting brought him to the chamber, training the chamber's servants and allocating lodgings and places at table according to a strict order of precedence. Guy Woolston's chance to establish his own family seat came in 1468 when he received a grant from the Crown of 270 acres and rather delightfully the rent of one rose flower presumably a white rose. This land was described in the charter as in hail by apthorb. This is a larger version of a bigger view of that map and here we have apthorb, apthorb and this is the site of, down here, the site of the village of disused or abandoned village of hail. So hail was actually about one mile south of apthorb, apthorb and from this description it can be infer that the bulk of the land making up that 270 acres lay between hail and apthorb and the village of apthorb and that encroached on the southern outskirts of the village. Just why Woolston was granted the land is unknown but it may have something to do with a change of regime at Fothering Hay in 1469 when the king's mother moved to Birkensted in Hertfordshire and handed over the castle to Edward IV. This may have resulted in Woolston losing his accommodation at the castle assuming that's where his wife and two daughters were courted and consequently the need to find somewhere to live close by. Although Lord Hastings was appointed as steward and surveyor of the castle in 1469 this is unlikely to have affected Woolston's role as he was confirmed as constable later in that year. Throughout the 1460s and for much of the remainder of his life Woolston held a number of important positions that confirmed his place among the county's gentry. These included serving as a justice of the peace for Northamptonshire in 1467-8 then from 1472-1500 as MP for Northamptonshire from 1472-5 and his sheriff of the county in 1468-9 1487 and 1491. He was described as of Apthorpe in 1472 by which time the core of his new house was likely to have been built. So this new house was not entirely on a Greenfield site. Limited excavations in the main part of the house in 2007 revealed the presence of pottery fragments dating from the mid 12th century to the beginning of the 15th. Analysis of the fragments shows them to be of a fairly common type associated with domestic habitation and there was little evidence of high status pottery that one would expect to see if it was a menorial site. Furthermore the excavations revealed a one meter thick wall running approximately north south and which probably formed the footings of a tall single story or low two story building and this is that wall here and is a cross wall running across that way. This is an early 17th century drain leading to a soak away of the same date there. From the pottery and the wall footings it's reasonable to assume that the building or buildings was part of a southerly continuation of the village street which was cleared away by Walston for his new house. The absence of pottery fragments dating from after the early 15th century suggests that these earlier buildings may have been in a ruinous state by the late 1460s. So to help you get your bearings this ground plan shows in light blue the surviving elements of Walston's house in relation to the current footprint of the house as a whole. It was approached from the north through the gate house here flanked by lodging ranges to east and west and originally there. And perpendicular to that so here is the great hall and associated buildings. It was an upper end cross wing here which incorporated a parlor and secure cellar on the ground floor and a great chamber above. And at the low end of the hall this area was the buttery and pantry in the usual position with a chamber above that and beyond that offset in this position was the kitchen with some domestic offices to the left of that. To the west here framing the kitchen court or west court is a two story ten bay service range which we've seen an illustration of trearing dated to circa 1476 probably with a dairy wash house bake house and brew house and servants sleeping rooms on the first floor. To the south of the hall cross wing was a tall detached building probably a high status lodging tower which is the structure here. The kitchen court was enclosed on three sides by buildings with the south side left open the east side of the main courtyard so here may have been open in Wallston's day or perhaps enclosed by a low wall the construction of the current east range in 1622 to 4. So this is a reconstruction of the ground plan of the house by the time of Wallston's death in 1504. This first phase of work carried out in the period from around 1470 to 1480 is in pale blue. As Wallston is recorded as living here in 1472 we can surmise that the hall upper end cross wing and services in the kitchen are likely to have been in place by that day where the other elements coloured pale blue such as the west service range of about 1476 and the south lodging range built within a few years of that. By many of the oak timbers used in the construction of this first phase of buildings were grown too fast to be suitable for dating crucially we did manage to get a precise failing date of 1469 for a floor joist in the chamber at the low end of the hall. Other joists provided results that comply broadly with this date and are of similar scantling and appearance. The hall was entered from the main courtyard to the east by a two story stone porch. This had an opposing two story porch at the other end of the screens passage on the west side of the hall. So there's the east porch and this is the opposing west porch. Opposed porches are rare most halls having only one. There are known to be two or three examples with opposed porches. The west porch seems to have been constructed to connect the great hall with the kitchen which was located on the north side of the courtyard created by a screen wall. Screen wall is here so you have this courtyard here is the west porch and this little court here separated the main service court from the more sort of private domestic area close to the hall. Thus the porch would have been the only way of getting the food from the kitchen to the hall. An open air servery court perhaps provided with some protection from the elements by a wooden pentus most probably existed in the area between the west porch and the kitchen. Examples of other unroof servery courts of this period included Gainsborough old hall Lincolnshire circa 1480 as a joining the late 14th century kitchen at Asby Duller's Zeus castle in Leicestershire which is the seat of William Lord Hastings. There were two doors at the low end of the hall one opening onto a battery or pantry the other possibly to a passage leading through to three rooms of identical proportions on the ground floor of the north west lodging range where upper servants may have been accommodated. So this is this area here. The passage may also have connected to a stone vice or spiral stair and the angle between the east porch and the low end services and that provided access to the chamber over the battery and pantry. So the suggested position of this low end stair is here. The area where the battery and pantry was has been heavily altered so the arrangement shown in this drawing is very much hypothetical. There is no fabric evidence for the position of the low end stair and the area of wall adjoining the east porch was removed in the 1620s to make way for a bay window. However in the absence of any evidence the area adjoining the east porch seems as good a place as any for it. The low end stair at nearby Neville Holt in Leicestershire was built in precisely this position in the mid 15th century. At the upper end of the hall on the east side there was originally a projection later replaced by an orial leading to a stair providing access to a great chamber over the parlour in the cross wing. The parlour was originally a single large room with a secure cellar or strong room at its west end. Some 12 metres to the south was the detached three story lodging tower. This is all that remains this structure here of the lodging tower. It once extended further in this direction and also in that direction and it's been built around by later buildings. The upper section of the lodging tower has also been heavily modified. There was originally one large room on each floor heated by a fireplace in the north wall and connected by a spiral stair in the north west corner. Extensive alterations to this part of the house make it very difficult to understand but it's likely to have comprised Walston's finest lodgings for his family or honoured guests and to have afforded views out over the landscape. The way over gardens on the south side of the house in the late 15th century is unknown. This is an elevation of the hall looking from the main courtyard. Here we have the east porch, the hall here and this is what's called the this is a later parlour wing which I'll talk about shortly. Interesting to point out this bay here which was added in 1620 but in a style that respects is very similar to the late 15th century work and seems to be a very early example of deliberate antiquarianism and that's one of the themes that exists throughout the history of the house as it happens. The parapets that you see here are all later and the og shaped gables date from the early 17th century. Walston's work was constructed of local eulitic limestone with rubble facings and ashla coins. Only one or two expanses of walls such as the hall porches and the flank elevations of the gate tower were of square cut ashla. The rest of the external walls may have been rendered as the main facade that's the north elevation of the north range was rendered inscribed with masonry lines and limoshed and fragments of this treatment are trapped behind additions dating from the 16th century. Much of the ashla work that one sees in this slide here is much later indeed. It's a later re-facing. Walston employed local masons as there are many parallels that can be drawn with other buildings in the area showing that the 15th century masonry work was firmly rooted in the secular and ecclesiastical traditions of this region. However, there are one or two features of the masonry work that are advanced for their time reflecting some knowledge of latest fashions and perhaps indicating some familiarity with the new works recently undertaken for the king at Fotheringale. An example is the use of arched window heads with hollow spandrels and an absence of cusping and you can see that in the hall windows here on the east side of the hall. I put this slide in a great shellfield manner which was built at roughly the same time that's slightly later where the hall windows are slightly more old fashioned in terms of their more traditional parents were sort of wide tracery. So, these window heads that one sees at Aepthorp were employed in brick buildings at Eaton and at Queens College Cambridge in the 1440s but they weren't widely employed in stone-built houses until later in the 15th century or even early in the 16th century. The hall is relatively modest in its proportions and restrained in its decoration. It measures 35.5 feet long by 20 feet wide and is smaller than some northampton chicrate halls such as the slightly later examples at Bowton and at Fawsley but fairly typical for its time. It consists of four bays with cambered arch-brace collars and three tiers of plain wind braces. On the right is a detail of a fine late 15th century door which has been in a number of positions in the house but is now linking between the east porch and the main entrance to the hall and it may well be its original position. The hall was lit by continuous banks of windows set high up in the east and west walls. It was originally heated by means of an open half closer to the low end and the window in the centre of the west wall you can see here there was once a window there but that's been blocked by insertion of a mural fireplace in the 16th century. There was a second service door roughly in this position which has been blocked by that later panelling there. There is likely to have been an earlier gallery over the screens passage this particular one dates from the late 17th century. In terms of its decoration the hall appears very plain and devoid of colour but in the late 15th century the windows may have incorporated heraldic glass while the large areas of wall below the windows could have been panelled. They may also have been enlivened with hangings. If one adds to that furniture such as the trestle tables and benches and also a canopy or hanging over the dais at the upper end of the hall the space would have looked very different. The original parlor on the ground floor of the cross wing was lit by multi-light mullion windows in its south and west walls and accessed from a doorway in the south east corner of the hall section through the hall. That little feature there incidentally so this is looking towards the low end. This little feature here is actually a squint which enabled someone in the chamber over the buttery pantry to look down into the hall from a seated position. The original parents of the great chamber on the upper floor of the cross wing as unknown as the roof and ceiling were replaced within 10 to 15 years and the room was later subdivided into two. We know it was originally accessed from a short lived stair in the north east corner of the cross wing. The parlor and great chamber seated by fireplaces later removed in the centre of the south hall of the wing. This is the evidence for the block stair that originally led up to the great chamber and there was an earlier stair tower here which was later replaced by this Oriel Bay and this is the moulded doorway that led through from the hall into the original parlor and you can see the slight step up there and that reflects the height of the dais which has been removed from this part of the hall. The three-storey gate tower in the centre of the north range was flanked by two-storey lodging ranges and formed an impressive entrance into the main court. The sculptural decoration on the north face of the tower is all later. Overall, the tower is smaller and less overtly defensive than Walston's brother-in-law's Richard Sapcote's near contemporary gate tower where there are some chicolations and cranolations at nearby Elton Hall and you can see that gate tower on the right. The ceiling over the archway of the gate tower at Aitthorpe is comprised of plaster panels with a grid of moulded wooden ribs. Above the archway was a high status groin vaulted chamber lit from the north by a three light window and from the main court by an Oriel. So this is the space here with the vaulted ceiling match the Oriel. This is the main courtyard side and that's the main northern approach. The chamber seems likely to form part of the suite of first-floor rooms making up the north-west lodging range. The room at the top of the tower could only have been accessed from a polygonal stair turret attached to a south-east corner. You can see that here. This room retains its late 15th century fireplace one of only two from the Walston period to survive in the house and there it is there. The restricted access and the vaulting to the room below which would have provided both security and fireproofing suggests that this room at the top of the gate tower may have functioned as a muniment room. The north-east lodging range was demolished in the 1740s so that's the section to one side of the gate tower and replaced by a tall library block that is of the same size as the gate tower and diminishes its impact from the main approach. This reconstruction drawing by Reverend Bonnie dating from about 1828 is his assessment of how the house might have looked when viewed from the north in medieval times. Here we can see the original, his interpretation of how that original lodging range later replaced by a library in the 1740s would have looked at the gate tower at that time. The lodgings faced inwards and the stacks and guardrobes of the lodgings, there's an example there, were on the outer face of the building. The surviving north-west lodging range which extended across the north end of the hall range as far as the kitchen has been much modified. While the three rooms on the ground floor may have been used to accommodate members of the household or upper servants, the three first floor chambers or if one counts the gate tower chamber seem to have been of higher status and may have been used by family members or guests. The survival of a late medieval stone door jam at first floor level between the two eastern most rooms may indicate they were linked and formed a discreet apartment. This is the roof over that north-west lodging range. The three first floor rooms had shallow pitched plaster ceilings which are suspended from the collars of the roof trusses and one can see the outline of that pitch ceiling there on the end board. Allston's career continued to prosper throughout the 1470s and into the 1480s. At the funeral of Edward IV in 1483 he assisted in bearing the king's remains into Westminster Abbey to Lyon State and later to St George's Chapel Windsor for burial. He was busy acquiring more land in the eight door area and he was engaged in activity as a merchant in London in which capacity he was involved with several others in financing a ship for Richard III. From a document of 1487 we learn that Wallston was keeper of areas of woodland called Sulhae Fhermes or Fhermes means walks as I understand it and another area called Shortwood and these laid two miles to the north-east of Apethol. So this is Sulhae Fhermes and the actual lodge building is here. These were lucrative offices associated with the administration of woodland areas within the bailiwick of Clif and according to a document of 1551 Wallston was responsible for building Sulhae Lodge up in this spot here. Wallston seems to have survived the fall of the house of York and accession of Henry VII reasonably well perhaps being too low down the pecking order to be considered a threat Wallston fought with Henry VII at the Battle of Stoke Field near Newick in 1487 which seems to have brought him favour as later that year he was made a knight of the bath at the coronation of Elizabeth of York the eldest daughter of Edward IV This was a fitting honour for a loyal servant of the Queen's father and grandfather. Wallston's first wife Margaret had died in 1476 and around 1483 he married a widow who died just after 1488 when he married his third wife another Margaret The name of her family is unknown but she was evidently someone of some status since the daughter she bore with Segui Etheldreda or Audrey was appointed their principal heir effectively disinheriting the two daughters from Wallston's first marriage His increasing affluence coupled no doubt with the desire to expand the house to accommodate lodgings for his new wives resulted in additions in the 1480s The precise dates of the additions are well known but the relative chronology of the changes can be determined for an investigation of the fabric Chief among these changes was the addition of a two-story parlouring which is this brown section here added in the space between the south side of the Hall Cross Wing and the south lodging tower This contained a new parlour and perhaps a second room on the ground floor and two lodging chambers on the first floor The alignment of the new wing was skewed to the southeast to enable it to meet with the angled north wall of the lodging tower With the creation of the parlour wing a partition was inserted in the old parlour to create a lobby leading from the hall to the new parlour So that's the partition that was inserted and effectively this area, the old parlour This remaining room here was presumably downgraded to some sort of salarage and this lobby then led through from the hall through to the new parlour The original spiral stair connecting the hall with the great chamber on the upper floor of the cross wing was superseded by a new spiral stair within a tower in the angle between the cross wing and the new parlour wing on its west side So the original stair to the great chamber and this is the new stair that was created to link between the parlour and the great chamber This new stair tower survives within later accretions There it is and it's the only part of the house to retain its crenellated parapet At approximately the same date the single story screen wall was enclosed at the Survery Court an area on the west side of the hall was continued in the southerly direction to partially enclose a smaller, more private court or garden for used by the family or important guests So this is this courtyard here This is the screen wall continued along in this direction A stone mullion mullion countered by window afforded a view of the court from the new parlour While first floor multi light stone mullion windows overlooked the court from the great chamber and the lodging chambers in the new wing There were probably two windows on the east side of the parlour wing including a single story bay window at its southern end This is the general view of the new parlour which was heated by a stack in its west wall somewhere down here which would have been used by the family and this room would have been used by the family as an informal dining and sitting room and for the entertainment of friends Various refurbishments have removed all traces of the original decorative scheme but its walls may have been panelled In the late 15th century the parlour was likely to have been furnished with a bed to allow for its use as guest accommodation along with some chairs, a table and a cupboard or two The great chamber on the upper floor of the crosswing would have continued to be used for formal dining and entertaining but with the addition of the parlour wing it would have been accessed by the new stair from the south The gable projection forming part of the new section of screen wall was added to the west end of the crosswing and contained at first floor level a guardrobe and closet opening off the great chamber The roof of the crosswing was rebuilt and provided with a shallow barrel vaulted ceiling The plaster was affixed to the undersides of archbrace collars of closely spaced trusses The treatment of the new ceiling was identical to that of the first floor of the new parlour wing and the evidence in the area where the roof of the new wing joins with that of the crosswing indicates that the two wings were most likely given these new plaster barrel vaults at a time None of the original plaster ceilings survive but it's clear that they form part of an elaborate scheme befitting the function and position of the new lodgings The two rooms on the upper floor of the parlour wing were most probably Walston's bed chamber probably entered from the great chamber and another high status chamber possibly for Walston's wife to the south of that Between around 1485 and 1495 another two-story wing was added on an east-west alignment between the south lodging block and the west side of the parlour wing So here This south-west lodging wing may have formed a suite for Walston's second or third wife and rooms for the lady of the house are known to have been in this position from the early 17th century onwards The new wing enclosed the small court on its south side and extended out to the screen wall to the west It consisted of a larger heated room closest to the parlour and heated room beyond that at each level The first floor accommodation was likely to have comprised a bed chamber and closet while the ground floor rooms must have functioned as some sort of private and formal space off the parlour The final significant alteration made by Walston in the late 1480s or early 1490s was the addition of a canted orial window to the east side of the dais to emphasise this symbolically important end of the hall It replaced an earlier stair tower in roughly the same position but it was added later as a parent from a watercolour of 1846 by Rudge which shows it cutting across the blocked window of the original stair leading to the great chamber Also its roll moulded mullion and transient windows are different in their detail and it has miniature buttresses which extend down through the plinth It once had a ribbed timber ceiling with central pendant which is likely to have been a later insertion and was removed in the early 20th century and that ceiling was recorded in this country life photograph dated from the end of the 19th century Orioles were added in the 1480s to a number of other important houses at that time including for example Lincolnshire Old Hall and also at Neville Holt This is a reconstruction of how Walston's house is likely to have looked when viewed from the west at the time of his death in 1504 Sections of the screen wall had been cut away to give views into the two courtyards From left to right we see the kitchen the west porch and hall Here's the crosswind with the added projection containing the guardrail Here's the new stair and new parlor wing with this private garden court Here's the slightly later lodging range and here is the south lodging tower At his death in 1504 Walston had amassed in the state of some 1300 acres in Apethorb and the surrounding area plus 80 messuges and a mill together with land holdings elsewhere in the East Midlands and beyond He has presumed to have been buried under the south wall of the Chancellor of St Leonard's Church and the village as requested in his will This part of the church was later removed to make way for the addition of the Maldmay Chapel This cannot be confirmed In 1498 Walston and his wife Margaret agreed a marriage settlement between their daughter Audrey who must have been aged about nine at that time and Thomas Emson, eldest son and heir of Richard Emson Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and a member of Henry VII's council and he's shown on the left hand side in this painting Richard Emson was an influential figure and someone with a sizeable estate in the south of the county centred on Eastern Neston and for Guy and Margaret the prospect of marrying their daughter into this powerful family must have been an attractive one and a means to securing her future As it happened, nothing came of this alliance Since a spectacular fall from grace Richard Emson was closely associated with what was perceived to be excessive taxation under Henry VII was attainted and executed for treason by Henry VIII in 1510 Thomas Emson, son, was imprisoned with his father and in the process lost any real hope of advancement at court He and Audrey did not succeed in producing an heir It was in fact through the line of his daughter from his first marriage Margaret that Walston became a forefather of one of England's most prominent families girls and dukes at Bedford As I hope I've shown, Walston's career provides a valuable insight into the lives and fortunes of the Shire Gentry in the mid to late 15th century as well as the extension of royal patronage to their loyal servants by the Yorkers dynasty It's that blending of Walston's position as a member of the county Gentry with his service as a courtier with close personal links to the royal family that's of particular interest I think His aspirations, most evident through his house at Apedorp and its piecemeal development and expansion over some 30 years strongly reflect his growing affluence and changing family circumstances Despite being so closely aligned with the House of York he showed considerable political dexterity or just a plain old-fashioned ability to keep his head down in troubled times while adapting fairly seamlessly to the early years of Tudor rule Most likely to pay off their debts Thomas and Audrey Emson sold Apedorp and associated Manners in 1515 to a group of men including Henry Keable Alderman of London and Merchant of the Staple His son-in-law William Blount, 4th Lord Mountjoy and others The Blounts were staunch supporters of the Tudors and the 4th Lord Mountjoy was an important courtier, scholar and literary patron He was a pupil and later patron of the humanist Erasmus Master of the Mint 1512 Chamberlain to Catherine of Aragon He served as governor of the city of Tournai in the period 1515-17 When he returned from France in 1517 he began to buy up parcels of land in the Apedorp period This was presumably to build up an estate in close proximity to Fathering Hay Castle and Manor which Henry VIII had granted to Catherine of Aragon in 1509 Mountjoy seems to have spent little time at Apedorp His principal seat being at Barton Blount in Derbyshire Though he is thought to have remodeled Warstone's south lodging tower with new floor structures and large new windows on the upper floor At his death in 1534 Apedorp in the Associated Manors passed to his son Charles a courtier and patron of learning Charles Blount made a number of alterations which are shown in a darker shade of blue Here, here, here Principally to improve circulation he created a two story passage in part supported on the single story stone screen wall to the west of the hall range The inner or east side of the passage was supported on wooden posts and was timber framed Its purpose seemed to have been to link the sleeping rooms on the upper floor of the cross wing and parlor wing with the rooms used by the family during the day which by the 1530s were located north of the Great Hall At first floor level the passage was accessed from the Great Chamber via a reused stone doorway While at its northern end it turned to connect with the small room over the west porch and danced with rooms over the battery and pantry and the upper floor of the north west lodging range Here one can see the windows of that passage way The middle window has been blocked by this guard road block in this position in 1570 Here we see the west porch This new section of wall was created to carry one side of the passage as it turned on at a right angle to link with the little chamber above the west porch and from there along the screens passage gallery and into the chamber over the battery and pantry area The servery court that I mentioned earlier in the kitchen were off to the left hand side Here passages of the type I've just described were not uncommon from around 1500 onwards but surviving examples are rare The other main alterations by Charles Blount was his roofing over of the servery court north of the west porch In 1537 apethought witness one of the most dramatic events in its history when the house and park were raided by a group of 30 armed men 20 of whom were on horseback This was the first reference from the documentary record to the existence of the house and park at apethought This is again an example from that 1641 map Here we see apethought Here is the little park It's not known if the ringleaders of the raiding party bore a grudge against Blount or his tenants or whether this was just an act of random lawlessness but the attackers killed nearly all the deer in the park fired arrows through the glass windows and took and bound one of the servants of Richard Cecil who seems to have been renting the house at that time Richard Cecil of course being the father of William Cecil First Lord Burley Reports of the raid were sent to Thomas Cromwell but none of the ringleaders were apprehended and the reasons for the raid remain a mystery In 1543 Blount and his father's fourth wife the dowager lady Dorothy Mounjoy conveyed apethought and associated manners and offices to the king to a large amount of former monastic property This was most probably to create a large estate centred on Fothering Hay for Queen Catherine Parr whose family was from Northamptonshire and who married Henry VIII in that year The queen appointed one of her footmen as steward of the estate which following the death of the king passed to Princess Elizabeth and then in 1551 to Sir Walter Mildmay So to conclude how should we regard Warstyn's house In part because it was inaccessible for a long period It's not as well known as other gentry houses of the period such as Great Shellfield and Wiltshire Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire or even Appelhampton Hall in Dorset Nor arguably does it have quite a charm and detailing But as one of a relatively small number of double courtyard plain houses of the period to remain substantially intact it deserves comparison with them Although it has been to an extent obscured by later phases of the decoration it survives in pretty much its entirety and is worthy of further study The peace me an enlargement of the house over a 20 year period in the area south of the Great Hall reflects a growing desire for privacy among men at Warstyn's status and a growing specialism of roof function of room function in the late 15th century There is still much to be discovered about the early history of the house and no doubt more will be revealed by the work carried out by the new owners Thank you for listening