Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Speaker A: The Tudor History and Travel show is a podcast that brings Tudor history to life by exploring Tudor places and artefacts in the flesh.
You will be travelling through time with Sarah Morris, the Tudor travel guide, uncovering the stories behind some of the most amazing Tudor locations and objects in the uk.
Because when you visit a Tudor building, it is only time and not space which separates you from the past.
And now, over to your host, Sarah Morris.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Well, hello my time traveling friends. Wherever you are on the four corners of planet Earth, you are most welcome here with me, Sarah the Tudor Travel Guide, for another episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show.
Well, it's the month of May and of course our attention naturally turns to one of the most dramatic and remembered events of Tudor history. And that is of course, the downfall of Anne Boleyn and those men co accused with her.
Now, in honour of Anne and her famous family, in this month's episode, we head to the county of her birth, Norfolk. In fact, to Blickling hall, which many people, as you will hear me say in the intro to this podcast in a moment, consider to be the birthplace of Anne Boleyn.
If you visited Blickling hall, you will know that an early Jacobean manor house now stands on the site of the original Blickling mansion. And for many years it was believed that virtually nothing, if nothing at all, was left of the house that the Boleyns would know. But the question is, is that really the case? And that's really what I set out to uncover in today's episode.
There's no housekeeping for today, my friends. And so, with that in mind, we're going to go straight over to Blickling and meet our expert guide for today.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, grab your cup of coffee or enjoy whatever else you do while listening to this podcast. It's my pleasure to introduce to you Blickling hall and our expert guide, Megan Dennis.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: Welcome, dear listeners. You join me in the great hall of Blickling hall, or what was the great hall of the original manor house and still is the great hall today. It's a while since I've been to Blickling. In fact, the last time I was here, I think, was well over 10 years ago when there was a Blickling festival. I was lucky enough to come and see the likes of the great Eric Ives speaking. And it's so good to be back here because I've wanted to come and explore Blickling, which, as we all know, most people consider to be the birthplace of Anne Boleyn. So it's an extremely important location to us Tudorphiles. I wanted to come and explore Blickling and to find out what we know of the Boleyns of Blickling and what we know of the house that they knew and lived in. Because, of course, again, no, many of you will know that the house here today ostensibly seems to be a Jacobean manor house, but I think there's more to it than that. And so to find out more, I have our guide for today. Megan. Hello, Megan, and welcome to the show.
[00:03:59] Speaker D: Hi. Really nice to meet you, Sarah.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Megan. Please let folk know who are you and what do you do here at Blickling.
[00:04:07] Speaker D: So my name's Megan Dennis. I'm the property curator.
So that means I look after all of the old stuff and all of the historical stories about this place and think about how to present them to the public, share them with as many people as possible.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: So it's going to be. You're the perfect guide for today. Thanks so much for making time for us. I know you've got a really busy day here at Blickling. There's a lot going on, isn't there?
[00:04:31] Speaker D: Yeah, there's lots happening today. Photographers filming students, researchers. But we always make time to talk about Anne.
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Oh, wonderful. Of course, that is the focus our attention. Anne Boleyn and of course, her family, who had their roots in Norfolk. And so that's really where I would love to start with the social history of the Boleyns, really.
We know that the Boleyns came from Norfolk. Can you tell us more about the early origins of the Boleyn family? And how did they come to own such a beautiful house?
[00:05:05] Speaker D: It's a really, really interesting story, isn't it? Kind of a rags to riches, yeoman done good, kind of gradual accumulation of we and land and power and prestige. That is kind of, I think, probably fairly well known, but still fascinating in all its aspects. So, yeah, the Boleyn family, local Norfolk people, first mention of them is in the parish of Saul, which is only about 5, 10 miles from here. And we know that they were yeoman farmers, so they were well to do, but didn't have loads of land. And then gradual accumulations, buying land here, there, kind of garnering a bit more power, until they were able to purchase land here at Blickling, which the estate already existed.
And they took that over and kind of transformed it into a symbol of their accumulating power. And it very much became a statement of that. That power. The estate has always been kind of well to do well Respected, kind of looked upon as something that you want to have, that you want to hold, that you want to look after, that you're proud of. And I think it very much was that for the Boleyns on their way up the staircase, as it were.
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And they made.
First of all, I think we should just. Before I go on and talk about perhaps some of the key characters in the Boleyn story, or we discuss the likes of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, for example, and how he brought wealth to the Boleyn family, could we just define what a yeoman farmer is for people who don't know?
My understanding of a yeoman farmer is a farmer who actually owned land. So they didn't rent the land off a landlord. They actually owned it. And it took me quite a few years to understand. I think it was when we went down to the Wealdon Downland Museum, and we were lucky enough to go and look in a farm of a yeoman farmer, a house of a yeoman farmer. That was finally fully explained to me. So I think it's useful to make that distinction.
[00:07:20] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it's quite hard. We think about farmers as all being rich and powerful nowadays, but there were different types of farmers in the medieval period, and strip farming was still happening. So if you think about kind of historic maps and you see kind of little names written on all the strips, those are the people who were tenanting that land. They were paying someone to rent that land and to grow crops on it. But a yeoman farmer is different. He's the person who owns the land. So has income coming in from those tenants and will also probably be farming for themselves as well.
But they're not so rich and powerful. They've got small houses, they've got small farms, and I think that's why that growth from a small yeoman farmstead into the Blickling estate and everything that came after is so fascinating.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: It's remarkable. It's remarkable. But still, I think that change, that step up from renting your land to owning your land was quite a big step in the Tudor period. But they weren't yet gentry, let alone nobility.
But then we've got the characters who made that happen. And I think Sir Geoffrey Boleyn really is pivotal in that story. What can you tell us about him?
[00:08:35] Speaker D: Yeah, and I think as well as the accrual of land, it's those powerful marriages that the Boleyns made that really kind of gave them that opportunity to grow and to spread their wings, as it were, in terms of Political power.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Because we have Sir Geoffrey marrying, and this is where I test myself on the Boleyn family tree. We have Sir Geoffrey marrying Anne, who I think is the co heiress to Lord Hu and Hastings. So she's actually, literally, that's the important word here, co heiress.
And so when Geoffrey marries her, he brings the wealth, or at least some of the wealth of her father into the family. That's one massive match. But then their son William, who becomes Sir William, does the same thing. I think he marries Margaret Butler.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And I think these marriages are key to the success of the Boleyn family because they're not only marrying money, but they're marrying old families that have that political power, that have the prestige, have the titles that the Berlins really want to get their hands on. So it is about money, but it's also about marrying into the old gentry and becoming part of that set. Because as a yeoman farmer, you wouldn't be looked at twice. But as the husband of.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: The daughter.
[00:10:00] Speaker D: Of the butlers or the who's then, actually, you're growing in power and prestige and you're seen, and there's opportunities to get seats at court and roles that will give you that power, will give you that prestige, and will give you that entrance into that world of the court.
[00:10:21] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. It's a really great point because we have that first marriage to the daughter of a lord, and then Margaret Butler's the daughter of the Earl of Ormond, and then Sir William's son, of course, Thomas, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father.
Now he, of course, marries Elizabeth Boleyn, who's the eldest daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. So they're gradually, as you say, Meghan, climbing the Tudor social scale.
[00:10:49] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And excuse the clock.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: No, that was beautiful.
[00:10:54] Speaker D: Yeah. And that's what it's about. That's how you get ahead. That's how you become important. And the linchpin that the Berlins became in Tudor court by creating those alliances that bring you into that kind of social world.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: Yeah, they did an amazing job there, didn't they? Amazing bit of social climbing going on in, what, three generations?
[00:11:19] Speaker D: Absolutely. And I'd really like to know how conscious that was. Was it something that just happened or was it something that was pushed? And I get the feeling that actually successive generations of the Boleyns were aware of the climb that they had made and were pushing their sons to climb even higher. There was this ambition, and you see it again with Anne and her father, there was this ambition, you Know, get as far as you can, you know, wield as much power as you can. Put your daughters or your sons in the positions that you never had, but you wished you had had. And that ambition and that drive, I think, is really at the heart of Anne's story as well.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, they were an ambitious family. And so I was thinking as you talking, and in fact, you know, you have a book, you were showing me a book, and the title is great. From Plough to Crown in what, four generations.
That's an amazing feat, isn't it?
So we now have a bit of the social history of the family and we can understand where their wealth, their growing wealth and status comes from.
I'm now interested in talking about the house and what we know of Blickling. When the Berlins first purchased this, maybe you could talk about how they come to purchase the house and what do we know of the medieval house that existed here?
[00:12:40] Speaker D: So the medieval house is on the same footprint as the Jacobean house that we see today. So the Jacobean house, if you think of it, it's almost like a figure of eight, a chunky figure of eight or a digital clock. A figure of eight. You've got two courtyards. It's a double courtyard layout. And that is exactly the same as a medieval house would have had, with the great hall in the centre, the centre of the household, kind of on the cross of the eight. And that's where we're standing now. That of role as the linchpin of the house hasn't changed. This is where you dine, this is where you'd entertain, this is where your servants would kind of come and serve you. It really was a kind of center of the household, a place for the family to gather, but also to express their power to entertain their rich and important guests as well. So really is the hub of the house, where everything operates around it.
We don't have too much left of the medieval house. We know by the 1620s, when the current house was being built, that it was in ruin. But we can surmise some things from the way we know that medieval moated houses. And we still have the moat. So the moat, the medieval moat is still intact. It's always been a dry moat, though, so it wouldn't ever have been a wet moat. It was a dry moat, but. But the double courtyard layout is identical and would have operated the same.
[00:14:06] Speaker C: That's really interesting. Can I just ask it, was there a moat at the front of the house? Because now There isn't. It's just a flat drive.
[00:14:12] Speaker D: Oh, there is a flat drive, but.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: It does give brakes.
[00:14:16] Speaker D: There's a bridge with the two Berlin bulls on either side. Of course it does. So there is a bridge across the moat. The dry moat is still there. We still have frogs in the moat. Sometimes we have to rescue them out of the cellar. So, yeah, the moat is still, still there. It still operates. The house itself is in a rather strange situation in the landscape in that it's quite sunken down. We tend to think of kind of large estate halls as being up high on the hill, so everyone can look up to them and they can be this status symbol. We think the reason that the Jacobean house is down here is because the medieval house was here and the medieval house was important because it was the Boleyn's house. So we know that the Jacobean mansion we have today is here because the Boleyns house was here and was built on the same footprint. So when you walk around the Jacobean house, you're actually in effect still walking around where the medieval house was.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: And I think one of the things that sort of, when you first pull up to Blickling, you've got this magnificent view down the drive. And it does. It's a very imposing and beautiful house. And I think one of my first comments, as before we started recording, oh, it's really big, isn't it? But then we came into the great hall and you talked about it being a double courtyard manor house, but they're actually quite teeny courtyards, aren't they? So. So dear listeners, don't think Hampton Court, base hall, base court.
These are courts on a quite a small scale. So you come in through the main outer entrance, there's a small outer courtyard, and then you're straight into the great hall, as you say, which would have been the cross section.
[00:15:50] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.
We say Blickling is big, Blickling is big.
And it's rich and powerful and it makes a statement. But it also feels very homely. It feels very approachable, it feels comfortable. Big, not imposing. Palladian marble staircase.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Yes, big.
[00:16:10] Speaker D: It's. I always say it feels a little bit like it's giving you a hug. We've got these enormous U hedges that go all the way down the front drive to the main road. And as you look down the drive, it's almost like the. The hall is reaching out to you. And I like that idea. I like that Blickling is a home as well as a statement of power and prestige. And I Like, to think that it would have been that way in Tudor times as well, that it was a home first and foremost. It was a place to base yourself from and to feel comfortable in and to come back to, you know, when things were tough. It was a place you could depend on.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: I mean, you make the point about, you know, coming back to somewhere.
Why. Why did the Boleyns want to settle and build here? It's quite out of the way, isn't it, really, compared to, you know, London? And we know, of course, later on, Sir Thomas Boleyn moved his family to Hever. It was closer to London. It was close to the London Dover Road for commuting to the continent. But was it just the family routes here that kept them in this part of the world?
[00:18:28] Speaker D: I think it was a stepping stone. I think it was. They couldn't stay in Soar. They couldn't stay in their yeoman farming kind of community that they'd come from. But they hadn't quite made it to Court or to that connection to the continent quite yet.
It was a way of bridging the gap. It was a step up from Saul, but it was a step towards Hever.
And that's why I think it's really interesting that Anne potentially was born here and then grew up at Hever, because she also kind of transitioned from Norfolk, then towards the courts, where she obviously then spent the rest of her life.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: So they grew with their families. And I think it really would be remiss of me not to mention that actually when Geoffrey Boleyn married Anne, who she brought with us some estates in Bedfordshire and there was a very large house, and this really comes from. There's a fantastic lecture, dear listeners, by Simon Thurley, on the whole property portfolio of the Blins. He did it online via Gresham College a year or two ago. So perhaps I'll put a link into that so you can read about the whole portfolio.
I think because we've got Blickling and Hever, we do tend to forget that they're worth the properties.
Simon Thurley talks about Geoffrey Boleyn having a property in the City of London, which, of course, as Lord Mayor in London, of course he would have. And then we have this huge property, I think that was at who. That there's nothing left of. But I think, nevertheless, what you're saying, there is a stepping stone. The architecture is literally reflecting, isn't it, how the family see themselves and their growing status?
[00:20:05] Speaker D: Absolutely. And I think, you know, if you. If you think about your own House, you know, you choose and buy your house to reflect who you are, who your family are, what your needs are. Well, the Boleyns family's needs were changing. They needed a bigger place they wanted to stay in connection with their roots, but they needed a bigger place that could more eloquently express their ambition and where they wanted to get. And that's what Blickling provided. It provided that stepping stone.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: Now, I'd love to turn our attention. You mentioned right at the top of the recording that we are in the hall, the original great hall. Obviously it's been adapted, hasn't it?
Is it of a similar proportion, do we think, to therefore the original hall?
[00:20:48] Speaker D: Yes. So proportionally, the Jacobean building has the kind of outline, if you like. If you think about the outside walls are pretty much standard. There's one small change in the great hall. And actually we're standing, if you can imagine, we're standing in a large hallway, and then in the middle there's two big columns that then support a staircase. So in the Berlin's time, the staircase wasn't here. It was a great dining space. And where the two large columns are big square columns, that's where the original entrance wall was. So the great hall was slightly smaller than it is now. It was extended when it became an entrance way. But it would have operated the same as a medieval great hall in that you have the large dining space and then you have the corridor and the kind of minstrels gallery.
[00:21:39] Speaker C: Yeah, the screens passage. Absolutely. Which would have been the high and the low end. So I'm facing the staircase now, the doors behind me, the main door. So I've got my left and my right. Are the main privy apartments thought to be over to the right or the left.
[00:21:53] Speaker D: So the family's rooms would have been on the west. So that's to the right as we're facing the stairs.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:21:59] Speaker D: And that's where they are today. That's where our main Jacobean kind of state rooms are today. The rooms where you express your power and prestige and where you're living. And then to the west is where the servants quarters more likely would have been. So that's where your corridor and the.
[00:22:17] Speaker C: Kitchen, pantry, buttery, all the. Some of the service parts.
[00:22:20] Speaker D: Absolutely. It's really interesting that the Jacobean house then kind of.
It grows a little so that the servants quarters get pushed out onto the front drive. So the kind of main new addition to that medieval footprint was servants quarters that run either side of the front drive. So you're pushing the Servants out of the medieval house so that you can take over in the Jacobean period.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: So has all remnants of the kitchen and the pantry and the buttery, have they all disappeared here in the building?
[00:22:51] Speaker D: They're all gone. So the house as it was in the Berlin's time, had fallen into ruin. By 1616, which is when Henry Hobart bought the estate, there was someone living in the west part of the house, so living in the servants area, but the family rooms on the east side had all collapsed and had to be completely rebuilt.
So, yeah, there's very little fabric left.
But the very lovely Simon Thurley has been doing some work with us to have a look at the north end of the house because we know that that wasn't really finished in the 1620s. So Henry Hobart had these grand ambitions to create this wonder Jacobean architecture that reflected the Berlin history and really spoke of his power and prestige.
He was less worried about what the back of the house looked like. So we know that until the 1700s, actually remnants of the medieval and the Tudor remained at the back until then. That was then pulled down and reworked by another later Hobart.
[00:23:55] Speaker C: Okay, well, we're going to go and visit those areas and maybe we can talk and you can show us the little remnants that perhaps are left. Is there any objects we need to pay attention to in here before we move on perhaps and go and explore some of the.
[00:24:07] Speaker D: So, yeah, there are two very important sculptures in here that date to the 1760s when this space was reworked and this staircase was put in.
We've talked about the Berlins being an important part of Blickling. They've always been an important part of Blickling. Henry Hobart bought the estate because of the Berlin link and every succeeding generation has understood the power of Anne and has referenced that. So here we are in the great hall with these two wonderful sculptures. And on our right hand side they depict Anne. And on the left hand side we have her daughter, Elizabeth I.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: That's wonderful.
[00:24:49] Speaker D: Many of our visitors don't notice these.
These are brown oak sculptures. They're about life size, they're set into niches in the wall, but they're not wearing Tudor dress, they're wearing dress that is contemporary to when they were created. And in fact, recently one of our volunteers. Wonderful Geoff, identified a Hogarth print that these are based on.
So at that time, when you were depicting historical characters, you depicted. Pick them in the dress of. Of today. Yes, and so that's why it doesn't look like Anne. But we know it's Anne. It Says Anna Boleyn Hicknarter here born. So we've always celebrated that quite contested birthplace.
[00:25:37] Speaker C: I really want to come on to the talk about the birth debate shortly. But first of all, you wanted to point out something else. Perhaps we can pick up that conversation in one of the other rooms. But the. Some. Another object that you wanted us to look at.
[00:25:51] Speaker D: Are we talking about this guy?
[00:25:54] Speaker C: He's a familiar figure. I don't know why I recognize him. Yes.
[00:25:58] Speaker D: We've got.
[00:25:59] Speaker C: Obviously we've got a portrait of Henry viii.
[00:26:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So if. If you're a family that is celebrating Anne, you probably need to make some kind of reference to her very famous husband. So this is a. After Holbein. It's not a Holbein original, but it's. It's. It's that very famous recognisable image of Henry. I kind of. I don't know. I kind of don't like him having pride of place here in the great hall. But, you know, he's part of the story. And I guess if he hadn't married Anne, then we probably wouldn't all be talking about her today.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: Yes. So strawberries and cream.
Absolutely.
[00:26:37] Speaker D: And also, actually, because his image is so recognizable, all of the children who come in here, he's the one portrait that they know who he is and why he's important.
And then we can open up that conversation about why is he here? You know, why. Why have we got his portrait?
[00:26:53] Speaker C: And you say it's after Holbein, is it? When you say after Holbein, is it. Is it 16th century, but some from a workshop of. Or.
[00:27:00] Speaker D: Yeah. So it's a contemporary kind of copy of Holbein's famous.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: Right. Okay. So it's a 16th century, and there.
[00:27:06] Speaker D: Are a whole series of those exist in lots of. Of different places.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: Yes. Well, looking magnificent as ever, if not evoking mixed feelings.
[00:27:15] Speaker D: Absolutely. That's probably enough said about him.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: Enough. So we're leaving the great hall now, and you'll hear the acoustics change. We're walking into one of the corridors that leads us through into another space. So where are we now?
[00:27:29] Speaker D: So we are in the brown drawing room. We know that in the 1620s, this was the chapel, though, and we know that the Berlins would have had a chapel in their space in their family home. And so it's quite likely that this may have been the chapel within the medieval house, too.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: So that brings me to a question about the parish church that's at the end of the drive.
So immediately I'm Thinking, because a lot of people say that Anne Boleyn would have been baptized at the font there, which still exists. So the font you see today is a medieval font and therefore Anne would have been baptized.
Is that going to be. So if they had a chapel here in the house, what do you think about that or what do we know about that?
[00:28:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I think so. We don't know where she was baptized. We know she would have been likely to have been baptized. Chapel within a medieval home is more of a private worship space, so would not have been the kind of place that you would have a baptism. The baptism would be more likely to have happened in the church space, kind of in public. It's a kind of public acknowledgement, isn't it, of the birth and. And kind of your ambitions and hopes for the health of that child and obviously their religious upbringing as well.
[00:28:46] Speaker C: Yeah, indeed. Interesting. Yeah. I'd never really thought about the merits of having to have a child baptised in a parish church where you have that very interesting ceremony of the godparents outside the church having to pledge on behalf of the child that they were going to forsake the dev.
And they had to do that before they took the child in. And maybe you could only do that in a parish. I don't literally don't know the answer to that question, but you brought that up for me and I'm interested, but thank you. Doesn't seem to be any controversy around that. But what there is controversy around is the date of Anne Boleyn's birth. And of course this puts the whole story of actually, was she here at Blickling, Was she born here? So I cannot not come to Blickling and have that conversation with you. What do you think, Meghan?
[00:29:38] Speaker D: Absolutely. It's a really fascinating conversation. It's a really interesting question and I think we're never going to know for certain. I think the evidence is just not clear enough. But I think there's a lot of conjecture and there are two key dates that people talk about.
We think she's likely to have been born in 1501 or 1507. And we know that she went to the French court in 1513.
So if she was born in 1501, she would have been 12 when she went to the French court. And as a 12 year old at that time, she would have been viewed as an adult. She could have taken part in all of the court's activities and could have played an adult role in that court. If she was born in 1507, she would have gone to France when she was six.
It seems much less likely that she would have had an adult role at the age of six.
At that time she would still have been viewed as a child.
And therefore I think the earlier date is much more likely given what we know about her role in France. And we know in 1501 the Boleyns were here in Blickling.
But I don't think we're ever going to have, you know, the birth certificate or a baptismal record or anything like that that's going to give us that clarity. I think it will continue to be.
It is likely that she was born at Blickling because this was pre birth records, it was pre archives.
And the birth of a daughter is not, you know, not noteworthy. So you don't record it anywhere.
[00:31:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I must Admit I'm a 1501 girl as well. I know it evokes very strong opinions and it's good fun to have the argument. And maybe one of these days I'll get the key proponents of each of those dates. Cause there are key proponents out there and get them together and do an in person debate of that day. But the other thing that speaks to me is also just this long family connection that has held across the centuries of people talking about Anne being here. Now I know that's not concrete evidence, but we don't get that line of discussion at Hever. It's not carried through the social history of Hever as far as I'm aware. But it's. Yeah, as you were describing eloquently before, it's been living. It's a lived legend.
Legend kind of introduces the fact that it might not be true, but it's a lived tale or a lived story that's been carried on.
[00:32:20] Speaker D: Absolutely.
The story of the Berlins here at Blickling is a key part of the story from when they were here. But then it is referred to throughout. So we know that Henry Hobart, he makes reference to it being the Boleyns house that he's buying. He doesn't absolutely reference that Anne was born here. But in later generations we succeedingly see that Anne is referenced. We've seen the beautiful wooden sculptures in the great hall. There are references through heraldry throughout the architecture of this place. So we think about just some of the simple things like Henry Hobart choosing his coat of arms because he's another man done good rags to riches story. He creates his power and prestige for himself. And when he gets his coat of arms, he chooses for his family the bull which is a reference to the Berlins coat of arms. It's also a reference to the Norfolk name for the Berlins, the Bullens bull. L, E N S.
And we see those bulls throughout the architecture. And as you said, if this isn't that birthplace, then why does that resonate throughout history? And why do people still come today to see us and view us as Anne's birthplace? I think also, if you think about it, if she's born here in 1501 and Henry's buying bullittling in 1616 because she was born here, surely someone's going to remember that Grandpa Joe knew that they moved before she was born. So I think someone is going to disabuse him of his assumption if it's incorrect.
[00:34:07] Speaker C: I think it's also interesting. Just leaving Anne aside, that debate will continue, I've no doubt, until we get a firm date in a record. And as I say, it's fun to do, but I think we shouldn't forget that Thomas was her father. I mean, he was obviously, you know, a very, very prominent figure in this whole story. And to me, it's as wonderful that he was. Was born here and I presume the rest of his siblings, I don't know, but certainly Thomas was.
[00:34:35] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we tend to focus in on Anne, don't we, as the kind of key figure, the one that everyone learns about at school. But actually, that backstory and her creation and the kind of aggrandizement of that family is really important. And Thomas's role within that is key as well. And Henry would have recognized that as well. You know, Henry Hobart, again, was following the same trajectory, was creating a legal career for himself, was making himself known within elite circles in just the same way that the Berlins had been doing, you know, 100, 150 years before. Yeah, he'd have seen that story and seen his own story in it and liked that idea of using that history. We call it the hidden history of this place. That gives it power, that gives it prestige, that brings people here. So many of our visitors know that this is the birthplace of Anne Boleyn and want to experience it as that.
[00:35:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
So this has been really interesting to come and stand in what was the chapel. That's wonderful. Where should we go next?
[00:36:42] Speaker D: So we are going to walk towards the front drive so southwards through a series of showrooms that really look completely different to how they would have done in the Tudor period, but still have that same layout. So we're walking in the top part, if you like, of the figure of eight round that very first small stone courtyard. And again, these rooms would have been family.
Family spaces. We are on the west side, so we're in the family rooms. We've just entered the dining room. You might hear the change in acoustic because we've got wood paneling in here. And it's now very much a grand, ornate dining space with a wonderful Jacobean chimney piece. I think one of the things we tend to forget about medieval houses is how smoky they would have been and how did we heat these spaces. So whilst this chimney piece is. This is dated to the 1620s, the size and scale would have been similar to whatever fireplace was in here that would have warmed this space in the Berlins time.
[00:37:44] Speaker C: Do you think that, you know, you've talked about the overall plan being the same as in the overall footprint being the same. Do you think the rooms roughly are on the same, or do you think that partition walls have been moved to change sizes of rooms? Do we have any evidence of that?
[00:38:00] Speaker D: So we know, particularly upstairs, that rooms have been changed an awful lot. Even. Even in the Jacobean house, things have been swapped and changed since the 1620s. So what the. The scale of the rooms was. Was like pre the Jacobean house is really, really hard to say.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: Oh, I lament the fact somebody didn't write something down.
[00:38:22] Speaker D: But isn't it great because it means we can use our imagination. Well, we can't.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: And it's a fabulous room. And I notice over to my right a rather famous portrait of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth.
[00:38:33] Speaker D: Absolutely, yeah. It's another copy one. I'm afraid it's not the original, but yet again, another very familiar face. And I think, you know, we see portraits like this again and again in country houses. That representation of your links to power and prestige. So again, referencing the Boleyns and their impact on English history.
[00:38:54] Speaker C: So seeing Elizabeth on the wall makes me think of royal progresses and royal visits. And I do remember that there was at least one royal visit here, and I think it was Henry VII who came. And there's something in the records that tells us that it was Thomas Boleyn who was here to receive him. So we do know it's had some kind of royal visit. I was interested to know if Elizabeth had been here, since this is the birthplace of her mother.
[00:39:24] Speaker D: No, there's no. We know that Elizabeth made many progressions around the country and to Norfolk, but there's no record of her ever visiting Blickling.
[00:39:32] Speaker C: Okay, that's really sad.
But it's the same as at Hever, of course. We'd love to know, did Elizabeth actually visit Hever? And it's hard to imagine she didn't, but there's no evidence of it. So, yes.
And of course, I will remind you, dear listeners, that I have previously done a podcast about Elizabeth's visit to Norwich in 1578, which, of course, Norwich is the county town here in Norfolk, not too far away from where we are now. And if you wanted to hear more about that, I'll put a link in the description associated with this podcast.
So where do we need to go?
[00:40:06] Speaker D: If we go up and then go. Right, and then we'll go down into the 20th century kitchens. Because in the 20th century, Lord Lothian, Philip Kerr, who owned Blickling at that point, was fed up of the food being brought from the kitchen, which was out in one of these wings that's on either side of the front drive, and would come into the dining room where we are now via a tunnel. I can show you that. I'll show you the secret tunnel. Oh, yes, I've got my keys. I'll show you the secret tunnel and then you'll understand why he moved the kitchens into the house. Because the food was always ending up here cold, because it came about 100 meters from the kitchen and by the time it had gone through the dark and dank tunnel, it turned cold. So in the 1930s, he reinstalled, I suppose, in a way.
[00:40:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:52] Speaker D: Reinstall the medieval period reinstalled the kitchens in the west side of the house.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that sounds like a very sensible move to me.
[00:41:01] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, this, this is a servery and all of these cupboards were kind of heat lined. They used to have asbestos sheets in them to try and keep everything warm, but it didn't really work. Right, so we're going to go. We'll go down the stairs and then you'll see. You'll get another change of acoustic.
I feel the temperature drop. So we're kind of now in the moat.
We're on the same level as the moat.
[00:41:27] Speaker C: Yes. You can really feel it's really, really chilly.
[00:41:31] Speaker D: And if I get my key keys out. Hang on. Out of my pocket.
[00:41:34] Speaker C: Are we going in the secret tunnel?
[00:41:35] Speaker D: We're going to go in the secret tunnel.
So this is not open to the. And you don't have asthma or anything? No, Just need to check. Because it's so damp down here, we tend to get mold spores.
So you have to, you have to.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness, it's so chilly.
[00:42:01] Speaker D: Yeah. You'll have to be.
[00:42:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:42:03] Speaker D: Aware of all of our flood protection stuff.
So because we're deep in the valley and there's a stream that runs down the meadow that Blickling looks out onto.
On occasion. The basements have flooded, as you can see. So we've got pumps and flood defense to kind of keep.
Keep that out as much as possible. So this is the tunnel.
It's very low, it's very dark. There's paint peeling off the walls and it's so cold and really echoey and cold. And then you go down this part and we're still carrying food. Warm food.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Lovely.
[00:42:47] Speaker D: And then we come out into. Oh, it looks like from the other side, I think into the west wing.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: That way, right? Yes. I can see. So you can see out through the window. We're actually in the moment.
[00:42:59] Speaker D: Yeah. And this is where the frogs come.
[00:43:01] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:43:01] Speaker D: We have to rescue them. Most springs.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: It's a pretty little bridge, isn't it?
[00:43:06] Speaker D: It's so beautiful. And it's the only bit that we have left of the original stone balustrade that would have existed on. On the top of the wall as well.
[00:43:14] Speaker C: I see. Yes.
[00:43:15] Speaker D: But it's now gone.
[00:43:16] Speaker C: How lovely.
[00:43:19] Speaker D: I.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: Can we just get out of here because it is rather chilly and I can absolutely see why he had the kitchens moved.
Nice idea. But not. Not really working in practice.
[00:43:33] Speaker D: No. And I hope they would have been cleaner. The tunnel when. When it was in use.
Yeah. So a little bit warmer here we.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: A little bit warmer.
[00:43:50] Speaker D: We benefit from late source heat pump now. All mod cons in.
[00:43:54] Speaker C: And yes, times they are a changing.
[00:43:58] Speaker D: Absolutely. So we've got the butler's pantry here.
And then.
[00:44:03] Speaker C: So this is all 20th century renovations.
[00:44:07] Speaker D: Yeah. This is our kitchen, which would have been the servants hall and may have been the servants hall in.
[00:44:13] Speaker C: Back in the day.
[00:44:14] Speaker D: Back in the day as well. So the servants hall is a. Is the space where the servants live.
It's their eating, it's their entertaining, it's their kind of social space.
Gives them a bit of privacy from.
[00:44:30] Speaker C: Just while we're walking through what.
What records do survive for Blickling Hall? How far do they go back?
[00:44:39] Speaker D: So for the hall itself, we are really lucky that we have a lot of archival material to do with the rebuild in the 1620s. So we know where the bricks came from. We've identified some of the masons from the masonry marks. We know what quarries the stone came from. We know who the sculptor was of the amazing Jackson Jacobean plaster ceilings. Which is the other thing that Blickling is famous for, the kind of preservation of these enormous ornate ceilings that again are all about power and prestige and kind of self.
Self image, I suppose in a way, Henry Hobart chose how he wanted to decorate his house, what emblems and images he wanted to use. In the same way that we choose what images we want to put on Instagram or onto X, it's all about self image presentation and self image.
[00:45:35] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So where do we need to go?
[00:45:38] Speaker D: So we're now going to go up the brown stairs. So we're in the basement, we're in the moat layer. And these are servants stairs. So we're going up a set of stone stairs and then as we come up to ground floor level, the stairs suddenly become carpeted and that's because we're then in the family space.
So in the Jacobean house, we're now going up to what we call Lothian Row.
Lord Lothian was the last owner and he named all the bedrooms on this first floor, O bedroom, T bedroom, L bedroom, after the letters in his.
His name.
So Anne wouldn't have.
[00:46:20] Speaker C: So where are we now?
[00:46:21] Speaker D: So we are now, if you think about that figure of eight, we're kind of on the right hand side, just about to head towards that front corridor. Right. Okay. We're on the west side on the first floor.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: It gets very disorienting when you come to it.
[00:46:36] Speaker D: You go round and round in spirals.
[00:46:41] Speaker C: And what's the first drawing that we have? Illustration, I presume it's of the Jacobean house.
[00:46:50] Speaker D: So yes, it is of the Jacobean house.
But there is a interesting drawing that shows some of the north.
It's a drawing from the north side that shows some of the remaining medieval before it was demolished to make way for what we now think of as two very grand state rooms that we call the Peter the Great room and the state bedroom. And those were created in the 1760s, but they destroyed the medieval fabric to get to it. So we do have that one drawing of kind of higgledy piggledy kind of levels. It very much was clear that Henry had spent his money on the front facade and had let the back of the house.
[00:47:35] Speaker C: I see.
[00:47:36] Speaker D: I mean it was workable, but it wasn't pretty.
[00:47:39] Speaker C: And dear listeners, Megan has been kind enough to allow us to include a copy of that drawing in the show notes. So do pop over and have a look if you want to get a visual representation of what we've been talking about there.
[00:47:53] Speaker D: Yeah. And the only visual representation of any part of the house that Anne might have known.
[00:47:59] Speaker C: So really valuable for that so really valuable for that. Absolutely. And I don't think I've seen it. So I look forward to. I look forward to having a look. Okay, so we've come across back into the family side.
[00:48:10] Speaker D: We're back on the family side now. So grand rooms. Again, think grand rooms.
[00:48:15] Speaker C: Big, big. We're in a huge room here. It's very impressive.
[00:48:18] Speaker D: This is the south drawing room. You can probably hear the creaky wooden floor.
And if you were here and you looked up, you would see one of our famous plaster ceilings.
I think of this as a bit of an Indiana Jones room. So if you can imagine, it's kind of strap work, which means it looks like kind of belt decorated belts making patterns across the ceiling together with the Hobart bull within emblems. But then most impressively, there are these hanging pendants, we call them. And if you can imagine, they're square. But then from each side of the square there's a kind of strap coming down to make a kind of enclosed space in which there's a hanging bunch of grapes. And then at the bottom where those four straps meet, there's a kind of spike.
[00:49:06] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:49:07] Speaker D: And this is why I call it the kind of Indiana Jones room, because it kind of feels a little bit like they might fall on you. They're safe, they're all attached securely.
But this is kind of cutting edge Jacobean architecture, kind of trying new techniques, creating new visual effects. Really? Really. Again, Henry Hobart, just like the Boleyns did before him showing. I've got the money to invest in making my interiors look amazing.
[00:49:36] Speaker C: There's some stunning portraits here, some huge portraits. None though of our period, I don't think. No.
[00:49:44] Speaker D: One of my favorite portraits in here and I think kind of relates to the Anne family. There's lots of strong women stories here at Blickling. And this portrait here is of Henrietta Hope Howard, who was born here at Blicklin, just like Anne, who had an affair with George ii. So, you know, has that relationship to Court, but is also a strong, independent, powerful woman. And she had a really.
Her story ends happily, whereas Anne's.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Oh, good. Oh, good.
[00:50:14] Speaker D: But she divorces her abusive husband. She sets herself up with a lovely house in Twickenham called Marble Hill. She grates it, this coterie of kind of rich and famous friends. She marries a second time for love. It's a real. If any of your listeners are interested in learning more about Henrietta, another kind of powerful Blickling female story, there's a wonderful biography by Tracy Borman. Oh, is that really worth a read?
[00:50:41] Speaker C: Oh, wonderful. Fantastic. I hadn't realized.
That sounds like a great story.
So, I mean, again, we've got no real idea of the layout of the rooms in terms of the. We just know that we're in the family wing. So it would have been, from what we know, houses of the period, there would have been a series of successive rooms, no doubt more and more private.
[00:51:01] Speaker D: So as you head towards the bedchamber where the family are sleeping, or, you know, actually less and less access to guests and public.
[00:51:10] Speaker C: Absolutely. So do we have any idea whether.
Because we're in the corner at the moment, we're in the front corner and we're going to be walking towards the back of the house.
Do we have any idea which way those rooms were oriented?
[00:51:25] Speaker D: Unfortunately, we don't. I mean, we know that the Jacobean house was orientated on this north, south axis, but we know that it's equally possible that it was orientated east, west as well. We just don't know. Frustrating.
[00:51:38] Speaker C: Frustrating. I keep probing. I keep hoping that some information will come out somewhere. Somewhere. Anyway, let's. Let's keep our journey. Where do we need to go next?
[00:51:46] Speaker D: We are heading to the upper anteroom, which in the Jacobean period is where the stairs came up into the staterooms.
And then we're going to go into the long gallery, which is kind of the piece de resistance, if you like, of how we're doing our conservation. Clean. So there may be odd noises as we. As we come through.
[00:54:27] Speaker C: That's all right.
Oh, my goodness. I'd forgotten.
[00:54:32] Speaker D: How could you get this room set?
[00:54:34] Speaker C: I've forgotten this gallery.
[00:54:36] Speaker D: It's beautiful. I love it. I think of it like an onion. There's so many layers. So when it was built in the center 1620s, with this glorious plaster ceiling, it was a kind of walking space. If it's raining outside, the ladies can walk up and down and there would be family portraits on the walls. And then in the 1760s, the family inherited this amazing library that belonged to Sir Richard Ellis, who was an academic, non conformist, kind of collected his books to learn things, you know.
[00:55:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:55:07] Speaker D: But when he died, he had no children and so the books came here to his nephew's house.
And he converted the long gallery because there are between nine and 12,000 books. We're not quite sure, we're still cataloguing them and in fact, our librarian discovered a really interesting volume of pamphlets we didn't realise we had just last week, so. Always finding new things out. But. Yeah. So you now see the galleries 36 metres long. It's fully lined by wooden bookcases with shelves at different heights, because the books are obviously all different sizes, Beautiful vellum and leather bindings.
History, philosophy, science, languages, religions. Richard Ellis was really excited and interested in religions and language, philology. So we've got Bibles in all sorts of different languages, languages. We've got other religious texts. It's a real gem at the heart of Blickling.
[00:56:08] Speaker C: And we've got the sun streaming in through the windows, which wouldn't normally be.
[00:56:12] Speaker D: Happening, but we're doing it because we've got conservation work going on. So we do need to control light levels to make sure that the books aren't damaged. But we do use the books. So we've got a student, a group of people from the University of East Anglia coming in this afternoon. Afternoon. To look at the books and to explore the books with our librarian and to be inspired by them.
[00:56:32] Speaker C: Oh, how wonderful.
[00:56:33] Speaker D: So our work at Blickling is very much about providing access and inspiration to people. We want people to know and love and share Blickling to feel like they're part of it and that they can contribute as well.
[00:56:47] Speaker C: But I suspect in the early 16th century, there was no long gallery here.
[00:56:52] Speaker D: No.
[00:56:52] Speaker C: Because long galleries still really hadn't taken off by that point.
[00:56:58] Speaker D: This was a jacket Anne would not have known. A long gallery.
[00:57:00] Speaker C: Yeah. So it just would have been a series, a sequence of rooms. But is this part of the house where we think there's a little bit of the medieval.
[00:57:09] Speaker D: We're heading towards that. So let's go into. In.
Into the end of the long gallery. And then we'll turn left and go across the north end of the house, which is where the original fabric is hidden.
So we're now at the north end of the Long gallery. We're just going to take a step through this, through this wooden door, which I always think is a bit like Narnia, because you go almost through the bookcases and then you enter a different world. Because this is very much the Long Gallery, Jacobean plaster ceiling, kind of 18th century. And then some very ornate, interesting friezes on the wall that were added in the 1860s.
And we go through them and we enter the Georgian.
[00:57:59] Speaker C: Another huge room.
[00:58:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So we've gone through the bookcase, we've left the Jacobean long gallery and the 18th century library behind, and we've gone from a many layered room into the only rooms really in Blickling that are of one period. And this is the Georgian period. So these rooms were created by John Hobart, the second Earl of Buckinghamshire, and he was another politician, he spent a lot of time abroad and he was the ambassador for King George III in the court of Catherine the Great.
He was also ambassador in Ireland as well.
It might be being a little bit unfair to him, but he was generally thought as being pretty ineffectual. He didn't actually manage to get any of the trade treaties that he was sent to do, but what he did manage to do was to create a really strong rapport with Russia. And so he and Catherine were very close, we don't know how close, but he used to ride with her, they would play cards and she gifted him this enormous tapestry. So we're standing looking at one wall which is filled with an enormous tapestry that depicts Peter the Great and hence the name of the room, the Peter the Great room. And John brought this back from Russia when he came back from his failed ambassadorship because it was given to him by Catherine. So the kind of size and scale of this tapestry tells you something about their relationship. And the fact that he was then willing to knock down the last remaining pieces of the medieval house to build these two rooms to celebrate that relationship and that ambassadorial role also says something. So we're standing in the place where there probably are remnants of the medieval, but you can't see them or even really feel them because we're in this salmon pink satin lined room, which would be beautiful. Gorgeous flickering candlelight on mirrors. You can imagine a ball or, you know, playing cards in the corner. GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING Real grand entertaining space.
[01:00:17] Speaker C: It's palatial, really. I mean, you would see a room of this size in Windsor Castle or, you know, it's a palatial size room.
[01:00:23] Speaker D: Yeah. Like we were saying earlier, it's probably the only part of Blickling that doesn't feel homely, doesn't feel comfortable, is much more Chatsworth Holcombe grand display.
[01:00:36] Speaker C: So you mentioned earlier that Simon Thurley, who many people will know because he's one of my absolute favourite people in the world, talks about Tudor history and houses. He's interested in delving more and trying to find out more about the Tudor. So how's he gonna do that?
[01:00:55] Speaker D: Let me walk you through to, to the north west corner of the house, which is where he is most excited about potentially finding bits of Tudor still remaining. We're just going to walk through a darkened space that is the state bedroom and created at the same time as, as the Peter the Great room. And then we're going to go down a 1980s staircase.
They've been inserted into the north west turret. Blickling has four turrets on each, each corner of the building.
I'm going to go and go in at the ground floor. I might need my keys. I do need my keys.
Into the northwest part of the building on the ground floor.
I have to take you into some un salubrious areas. I'm afraid. I'm going to take you into the toilets.
[01:01:45] Speaker C: I think that might be for. For a Tudor history and travel show episode.
[01:01:50] Speaker D: So this room is now being used as a storeroom and we're coming through what we now call the documents room and it's full of white.
It's like a room full of parcels or ghosts. Yes, it's furniture that is all wrapped up for protection because it's in storage. But this is kind of the heart of where we think there might be some medieval brick remaining behind the paneling. And in these spaces in this northwest corner, it's where Simon is curious about the bricks and some of the build techniques used, because that's what I was.
[01:02:29] Speaker C: Going to ask you. As you just pointed out, there's not really much to see.
So what is he hoping to understand by researching more?
[01:02:39] Speaker D: I think what he wants to do is to establish where there is material evidence of that earlier house. So we talked about the Jacobean house being built on the medieval footprint.
Actually, if we've got parts of that medieval footprint still in place, that gives us an opportunity to understand what that house looked like, to make some more knowledgeable interpretations about how that house might have looked, how it might have operated, the scale and size of it and.
[01:03:08] Speaker C: Also the materials it was made out of.
[01:03:10] Speaker D: Absolutely. The kind of materials that you're using, the kind of techniques they're using, tell you something about the scale of build and the prestige of the builder. So in the yeoman's house, they'd have been using kind of wattle and daub and whatever local builder. But in a more grander, In a step up house, maybe you're bringing in an architect from somewhere else. You're bringing in stonework, potentially, which we see in the Jacobean house. We know that stonework's being brought here. We don't know if it was brought here for the medieval house or if it was purely local brick.
[01:03:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, I think one of the things to bear in mind when I first started sort of writing about Tudor history and looking at places was that, oh, you know, there's nothing left of the house that Anne knew, you know, it's all Jacobean. But I think that has been debunked a bit now, hasn't it? I mean, I know I'm going back and covering some of the things you've already said, but I just wanted to highlight the fact that actually, I think now we think there's more of the fabric of the house, original house, here than perhaps we originally, you know, we thought, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago.
[01:04:16] Speaker D: Yeah. And as I said, like, we now we have the archives of the building, so we have the messages going backwards and forwards from Hobart to kind of his estate manager, who's saying, you know, actually all the timbers on the east side, they're all decayed, we need to replace them all. So we. We have that. The way I think about it is that there are medieval bones in this building.
[01:04:36] Speaker C: Yes. It's a nice way of putting Jacobean.
[01:04:38] Speaker D: Skin, but the bones, the structure is medieval.
[01:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it. Excellent.
[01:04:45] Speaker D: Right, I'm going to take you into the toilets.
Don't hear that.
[01:04:49] Speaker C: It's the best invite I've had all week.
[01:04:52] Speaker D: So, again, I mean, you probably won't see anything but these spaces. And this is the ladies toilet. These spaces are likely to be where, you know, and the thing Simon's talking about is, like, when we have to remove or replace wood, can we get to the brick skin underneath and have a look at it?
[01:05:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:05:11] Speaker D: Again, we know that this west facade was all rebuilt in the 1860s, so, you know, not a great job done to it. But what's it hiding?
[01:05:20] Speaker C: Yes, I understand. So it's really going to be a case of literally peeling off some of the layers and seeing what's underneath and.
[01:05:28] Speaker D: Probably doing it piecemeal as well. So that as we get the opportunity, because we don't want to rip historic fabric down. It's a listed building, we're not going to do that.
But actually, these are the spaces where we might find it. I just point out to you, whilst we're here, this is probably the only place you can pee and be looked on by a Piranesi engraving. And we've got a couple of prints in the gent's toilets, including one over the urinals, which are carefully protected by glass screens, but part of the original kind of fabric of the Jacobean house.
[01:06:05] Speaker C: Amazing.
[01:06:08] Speaker D: You get to see some strange things in these spaces and then again, like little cubby holes that we currently use for cleaning.
But again, potential that underneath the plasterwork, you know, like this chimney piece, we just don't Know what's there?
[01:06:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:06:25] Speaker D: We've now pretty much done a tour of most of the open spaces and we're walking back down towards that central great pool.
[01:06:37] Speaker C: So I think this would be a good place maybe just to finish the story of the Boleyns in that. You know, we talked about the Boleyns living here, we talked about the birth of the children here. But then, of course, we get the downfall of the Boleyns, the execution of Anne and George, and shortly thereafter, their mother and father die. And so what happens to Blickling then?
[01:07:02] Speaker D: So after Thomas died, he left Blickling to his brother James. And we know that James was kind of consolidating his holdings in Norfolk. He was buying more land. But in 1553, he sold part of the estate and he sold it to his nephew, John Clear, and then it passed down the Clear family to Edward de Clare, who in the early 1600s was struggling. He was struggling to keep the estate running. And that's when Henry Hobart stepped in. Henry was already interested in Blickling, so he'd been married here in 1609, he'd bought little bits of land around the estate, and when the opportunity came in 1616, he swooped in and took the whole lot. I think it's really interesting that he chose to marry his wife, Dorothy bell, here in 1609, despite the fact that neither of them had a link here.
They were both Norfolk based, but neither of them came from this parish. So I think he was already aware of the estate, he was aware of the potential, and he was aware of that Berlin link. And he saw it as part again of his growth in power and prestige.
And as a man at court, he didn't have a dynastic country house, he needed a country seat. And this fitted the bill. And I think he'd had it in his sights for a while.
[01:08:22] Speaker C: Right, okay. And then enter the story of the Jacobean house, which we've talked quite a lot about. So that's great, that's wonderful. I feel like we've come full circle now.
So in terms of visiting Blickling, what do people need to know? Are you open all year? How do people find out more info about you?
[01:08:42] Speaker D: So more info is really easy pop on our website and all of our opening times, prices, etc, all on there. There's always interesting things for family, visitors, for people who are interested in Berlin history. There's a wealth of things to do here on the estate. So it's not just the hall, there's our beautiful gardens, some of them by A really interesting garden designer called Nora Lindsay, dating from the 1930s. Beautiful kind of G. Cool style gardens. There's a walled garden which is actually part of the estate that Ann might have known because. Because that walled garden, walled kitchen garden is in the same place and has always remained in the same place since the medieval period, so we might want to pop out there.
But there's also a whole estate, so you can hire bikes, you can walk, there's a lake for fishing. It's beautiful. Visit and all the information's on the website.
On May 19, we.
I don't think celebrate is the right word, but we mark the execution of Anne Boleyn because traditionally and locally, there's a story that on the day of her execution, her ghost comes back to Blickling, her birthplace. And so we mark that with a ceremonial procession down the front drive. The kind of history of Blickling with Anne as the centrepiece. And then for any of you who are active and like getting outdoors, Anne makes an appearance at Parkrun at Blickling on the nearest Saturday. So if you come and park, run close to May 19 and parkruns with you, which is great fun, excellent, and shares her story with people who might not otherwise know it. So perfect.
[01:10:16] Speaker C: Thank you so much. Well, thank you. I just want to say thanks for being our guide today and showing us around Blickling.
[01:10:22] Speaker D: Yeah, it's great to share it and like I said, we want more people to come and fall in love with this place just the same way we do.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Well, that's all for today's episode.
[01:11:32] Speaker C: I think what we can take away.
[01:11:34] Speaker B: From this is that although there is not much ostensibly to see of the Tudor manor house, as Megan puts it so eloquently, the bones of the original Berlin home remain. Even though it has a Jacobean skin, I think that's the perfect way of looking at it.
And so it remains for me to thank Megan and the staff at Blickling hall for making a design so welcome. I'm certainly looking forward to getting back there, actually. Just a couple of weeks time when I take a group of our lovely tour participants on our Anne and Elizabeth Mother Daughter Traitors, Queens tour, Blickling will be one of our first stops as we explore with them the early years of the Berlins.
If you want, of course, to come on tour with me in person and see some of these amazing heritage properties for yourself, you can always pop on over to our website at Simply Tudor Tours, which is of course ww.simplytutortours.com to see what tours are currently booking.
Okay, well, it's time to say goodbye for now. I will look forward to seeing you again next month where we visit the wonderful, the majestic, the noble Hatfield House and of course, the Old palace of Hatfield, which I consider to be the cradle of the Elizabethan age.
I'll see you there.
[01:13:18] Speaker C: Foreign thank you for tuning in to.
[01:13:25] Speaker B: Today'S episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show.
[01:13:29] Speaker C: If you've loved the show, please take a moment to subscribe, like and rate.
[01:13:34] Speaker B: This podcast so that we can spread the Tudor love.
[01:13:38] Speaker C: Until next time, my friends. All that remains for me to say is happy time traveling.
