It was a fitting place to visit on St Justin's day as the house, seat of the Ferrers family, conceals no fewer than three priest holes crafted by Nicholas Owen.
The room which was converted into a Catholic Chapel in the 1890s, had been the bedroom where 8 Jesuit priests slept for over 3 years whilst stationed at the house and carrying out their secret sacramental duties during the great persecution.
The Chapel remains and contains a picture of Our Lady to which the then Bishop of Birmingham attached an indulgence of 40 days for the faithful who prayed the litany of loreto, the memorare or three Hail Mary's before it.
Near-by the Anglican Church of St Nicholas dates from the closing years of the Catholic period of English history. The tower was completed in 1517 in the reign of Henry VII.
