Secret Chambers were mostly of post-Reformation construction, designed as 'priest's holes,' or hiding-places for 'trafficking mass-priests,' in the days when to say mass was either high-treason or felony. They might also, of course, conceal Jacobite or other conspirators; and that of Danby Hall, the seat of the Scropes, was found, on its rediscovery about 1800, to contain arms and saddlery for forty or fifty troopers, stored up, it would seem, against some intended rising. Brother Nicholas Owen, S.J., alias 'Little John,' who with Father Garnet (q.v.) was arrested at Hindlip Hall, and who is termed 'that useful cunning joiner of those times,' was a chief contriver of these secret chambers, and after his capture 'was divers times hung upon a Topcliff rack in the Tower of London to compel him to betray the hiding-places he had made up and down the land.' They were oftenest formed in the thickness of a wall, and the entrance to them might be through a panel, behind a hinged picture, beneath a hearth-stone, up a chimney, &c. About a century since at Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire, it was noticed that one of the chimneys of a cluster was unblackened, and it proved to be really a shaft to give light and air to a priest's hole, the entrance to which was gained by removing a single step between two servants' bedrooms. You then come to a panel, with a very small iron tube let into it, through which any message could be conveyed to the occupant. This panel removed, a ladder of four steps leads down to the secret chamber, which is 8 feet long, 5 broad, and just high enough to stand upright in. Another at Ingatestone Hall, the old seat of the Petres, is 14 feet long and 10 high, but only 2 wide; this contains an old chest for vestments. How cunningly these chambers were contrived may be seen in the fact that at Hindlip the minutest search was made ten whole days in vain, till Garnet came forth himself, forced by want of fresh air, not of food, for marmalade and other sweetmeats were lying by him, and 'broths and warm drinks had been passed to him by a reed through a little hole in a chimney that backed another chimney into a gentlewoman's chamber.' Smugglers during the 18th century had sometimes secret chambers of a sort, for the storage of 'run' goods, at farmhouses a few miles inland; nay, so late as 1860 one such was used for illicit malting in a Suffolk village, till the excise officer detected its whereabouts by pouring water over the floor above. But for the last historical instance of their use we must look abroad, to Nantes, where in 1832 the Duchess de Berri (q.v.), a corpulent lady, was, with two gentlemen, roasted out of a secret chamber at the back of a fireplace, after sixteen hours' patient endurance.
The following is a list of some of the best-known secret chambers, arranged under counties in alphabetical order, with the date sometimes of the erection of the mansion (not necessarily, of course, of the priest's hole) or of its demolition, and with the names of traditional occupants: Berkshire, Lyford; Milton, near Abingdon; Watcomb. Bucks, Dinton (regicide Mayne). Berwick, Bemersyde. Cambridge, Sawston. Cheshire, Bollington; Lymey Hall, near Disley. Cornwall, Bochym. Cumberland, Netherhall, near Maryport. Derby, Bradshaw Hall, near Chapel-en-le-Frith; Hallam. Durham, Bishop Middleham (in which a 'teetotaller drank himself to death with brandy,' Southey's Commonplace Book, 4th series, 354). Essex, Ingatestone (temp. Henry VIII.). Forfar, Glamis Castle (the Toad-headed Monster). Gloucester, Bourton-on-the-Water (demolished 1834). Hants, Hinton-Ampner; Mapledurham, Moyles Court (Lady Lisle's house); Titchborne. Hereford, Treago. Herts, Knebworth (1553, demolished 1811). Lancashire, Ashes, at Goosnargh; Borwick; Lowstock Hall, in Bolton parish (demolished 1816); Lydiate; Mains Hall, in Kirkham parish (Cardinal Allen); Speke Hall; Widnes House, near Warrington; Stonyhurst (in great tower). Leicester, Long Clawson. Lincoln, Irnham Hall (c. 1500); Kingerby Hall; Upton. Middlesex, Canonbury Tower, Islington; Cromwell House, Highgate; White Welles House. Monmouth, Raglan Castle. Norfolk, Oxburgh House. Northants, Burghley House; Harrowden. Northumberland, Netherwitton (Lord Lovat?); Wallington Hall. Notts, Worksop Manor (burned 1761). Oxford, Broughton Castle; Chastleton; Minster Lovel (Lord Lovel, Simnel's adherent, starved to death here, 1487, and skeleton found in 18th century?). Pembroke, Carew Castle (temp. Henry I.). Shropshire, Boscobel (Charles II.); Pitchford; Plowden; White Ladies (Charles II.). Somerset, Trent Manor House (Charles II.). Stafford, Moseley Hall (Charles II.). Suffolk, 'Ancient House,' Ipswich (1567; Charles II.?). Coldham Hall; Melford Hall. Surrey, Benton; Hain House, at Weybridge (1610, hiding-places shown to Evelyn by Duke of Norfolk); Sanderstead Court; Sutton Place, near Guildford (temp. Henry VIII.). Sussex, Ashbourne Place (Bishop Juxon); Cowdray (Lord Montague); Parham; Pax Hill, near Cuckfield (built by Andrew Boorde, q.v.); Slindon; Street Place; West Grinstead. Warwick, Congleton Court; Compton-Wyniates (c. 1520). Wilts, Heale House, near Amesbury (Charles II.; visited by Dr Johnson, 1783). Worcester, Armscott Manor House, near Shipston-on-Stour (George Fox the Quaker); Birtsmorton Court (14th century; Sir John Oldcastle); Harborough Hall; Harvington; Hindlip Hall (eleven hiding-places, now demolished; see above); Little Malvern Court. Yorkshire, Abbey House, Whitby; Danby Hall, near Bedale; Dinsdale; the Grove, Leyburn; the 'New Building,' near Kirkby Knowle; Red House (Henry Slingsby).
See Notes and Queries for 1855-56 and 1879-85, Chambers's Book of Days (i. 433, 1869), and two articles in Chambers's Journal for Dec. 1883 and Oct. 1886.