Enquiries may be addressed to RupertWilloughby@btinternet.com.
DECEMBER 2010
Did Katherine of Aragon sleep here?
NEW BOOK REVEALS HIDDEN BASINGSTOKE
A local historian believes he has discovered the Basingstoke house in which Katherine of Aragon spent a night in 1501, on her way to marry the elder son of Henry VII.
Katherine is known to have passed through the town on her journey from Plymouth. She was the guest of Richard Kingsmill, a prominent Basingstoke citizen.
Kingsmill’s house was on the south side of Winchester Street, most of which he owned. It would have to have been very large, as well as grand, to accommodate Katherine’s entourage. The buildings in Winchester Street today are mostly modern, with none appearing to match the description of a grand Tudor building.
However, Rupert Willoughby believes he has identified the house as the one immediately west of Barclays Bank, which was long ago converted into shops. He discovered it by chance while researching a new history of the town.
He describes his book, Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture, as a quest for the lost Basingstoke, which he believes has been ruined by post-war developers. To his delight and surprise, he discovered that much of the old ‘Top of Town’ had been preserved, including all but one of its historic coaching inns.
He considers the Maidenhead Inn in Winchester Street, first mentioned in 1671, to have been the former Kingsmill house. Large town houses were particularly suitable for conversion into inns and this is known to have happened to Sir James Deane’s house next door – on the site now occupied by Barclays Bank – which became the Angel.
The Maidenhead has added historical interest as the landlady, Mrs Martin, was an acquaintance of Jane Austen. Jane’s father is thought to have been a member of the Hants Club which regularly met there. Mrs Martin organised the Town Hall assemblies that are re-created in her novels.
Mr Willoughby points to evidence of an archway for coaches that has since been filled in. He calls for an urgent investigation by architectural historians, so that the date of the building can be established, and steps taken to ensure that it is properly preserved.
Katherine of Aragon’s marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, which took place shortly after her visit to Basingstoke, was an event that changed the course of history, as it gave her second husband, Henry VIII, the pretext for his divorce.
The people of Basingstoke are likely to have turned out in large numbers to greet her, though they may not have been impressed by her Spanish entourage. Sir Thomas More was to describe them as ‘undersized, barefoot pygmies’ and ‘refugees from hell’.
Rupert Willoughby’s book, Basingstoke and its Contribution to World Culture, is available now from all good stockists, priced at £10.99.
APRIL 2008
Mr and Mrs Brocas of Beaurepaire – employers of Sir John Soane.
HISTORIAN FINDS LOST ARCHITECTURAL TREASURE AT SHERBORNE ST JOHN
Lost work by Sir John Soane, one of England’s most influential architects, may have been rediscovered at Sherborne St John – five miles from its original location.
The discovery has been made by historian Rupert Willoughby at Beaurepaire Park, one of Hampshire’s least-known treasures.
Beaurepaire was the seat, from 1353 to 1873, of the Brocas family, whose land stretched continuously from Burghfield Hill to Basingstoke.
Set in glorious parkland and surrounded by a medieval moat, the remains of the 18th-century mansion, wrecked by fire during the Second World War, were beautifully restored in the 1960s.
A prominent feature of the property is its moat-bridge entrance – a pair of elaborate wrought-iron gates supported by tall, brick pillars, each surmounted by the Moor’s-head crest of the Brocas family.
Mr Willoughby has discovered a reference to the construction of the bridge. ‘An old Bramley farmer called William Clift, who was born in 1828, recalls the event in his memoirs. According to Clift, the “large iron gates at the entrance over the moat” were brought from Wokefield Park, on the Brocas estate at Stratfield Mortimer, which had been the family’s favoured residence in the 18th century. Clift’s father provided the timber for the bridge. This occurred during his childhood and presumably coincided with the sale of Wokefield in 1839.
‘Soane, the foremost architect of the day and a local boy, brought up in Reading, had worked for Mrs Brocas at Bramley Church. He built the so-called Brocas aisle, completed in 1802, which houses the monument to her late husband.
‘It appeared that the couple had earlier employed him at Wokefield, where he made alterations to the house and designed a new gateway in 1788.’
Mr Willoughby found a drawing for the Wokefield gates in the archives at Sir John Soane’s Museum, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields – the architect’s former home which he left to the nation, along with all its contents – and compared them with those at Beaurepaire.
‘The entrance at Wokefield was much wider, so the iron gates are not the same. The brick posts now at Beaurepaire are, however, identical to those in Soane’s drawing, complete with the Moor’s-head crests. Plaques bearing the Brocas arms of a lion rampant are missing, but they may have been damaged in transit or never even executed. Not all the relevant drawings survive. The likelihood that Soane erected these posts at Wokefield in 1788 and that they were transported to Beaurepaire in 1839 is, however, very strong.’
The records show that Soane made nine journeys to Wokefield in 1788 and charged £650 for his services, a substantial sum. Soane was at the height of his profession. In the same year he was appointed architect to the Bank of England. The building was his masterpiece and its demolition in the 1920s has been described as the twentieth century’s ‘greatest architectural crime in the City of London’.
The romantic, often dramatic story of Beaurepaire and the Brocases – including royal visits and a lengthy Civil-War siege when it was defended by the lady of the house – is told by Rupert Willoughby in his book Sherborne St John and the Vyne in the Time of Jane Austen. It is available at all good stockists, priced at £9.95. Sir John Soane’s Museum in London is open throughout the year and admission is free.
