Some years ago, the Woking Review reported on “Secrets of The Old House”:
“To the right of the entrance hall is the drawing room with some fine old panelling discovered under six or seven layers of paper, and to the rear of this room is the entrance to the once secret passage, which linked the house with either Newark Abbey or the old manor house. The tunnel has been sealed for some years, but it is known that it also ran beneath the house to a point under a tiny room which had a secret entrance. This room was found only after measurements had been made which disclosed that a cavity existed. Upon the floor above is the priest-hole which had a direct connection with the room and the tunnel”.
Given the nature of the water meadows between The Old House and either Newark Abbey or Pyrford Place the notion of an escape tunnel is a romantic one. Any such tunnel would be pretty wet given the level of the water table and the lakes between it and where Pyrford Place once was and to stretch as far as Newark Abbey would have been a remarkable feat of engineering and presumably would have had to burrow under the Bourne Stream before eventually arriving at the Abbey!!!!
GG/Woking Review
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