Rye House in

Hoddesdon Hoddesdon () is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, lying entirely within the London Metropolitan Area and Greater London Urban Area. The area is on the River Lea and the Lee Navigation along with the New River. Hoddesdon ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

is a former fortified

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

, located in what is now the

Lee Valley Regional Park Lee Valley Regional Park is a long linear park, much of it green spaces, running through the northeast of Greater London, Essex and Hertfordshire. The park follows the course of the River Lea (Lee) along the Lea Valley from Ware in Hertfordshi ...

. The gatehouse is the only surviving part of the structure and is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The house gave its name to the

Rye House Plot The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and heir to the throne) James, Duke of York. The royal party went from Westminster to Newmarket to see horse races and were expected to make the r ...

, an assassination attempt of 1683 that was a violent consequence of the

Exclusion Crisis The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1679 until 1681 in the reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Three Exclusion Bills sought to exclude the King's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, ...

in British politics at the end of the 1670s.

History

The ownership of Rye House was very stable over four centuries; but the fabric gradually ran down, and the buildings diminished.

Foundation

Andres Pedersen, a Danish soldier who took part in the

Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a conflict between the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of France, France and a civil war in France during the Late Middle Ages. It emerged from feudal disputes over the Duchy ...

, was denizenised in England in 1433, becoming Sir Andrew Ogard. In 1443 he was allowed to impark part of the manor of Rye, the area then called the Isle of Rye, in the parish of

Stanstead Abbots Stanstead Abbotts (alternatively Stanstead Abbots) is a village and civil parishes of England, civil parish in the districts of England, district of East Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England; it lies on the county boundary with Essex. At the 2 ...

, and was given

licence to crenellate In medieval England, Wales and the Channel Islands a licence to crenellate (or licence to fortify) granted the holder permission to fortify his property. Such licences were granted by the king, and by the rulers of the counties palatine within the ...

what became Rye House. Over 50 types of moulded brick were used in its construction.

Early Modern period

In 1517 William Parr was living at Rye House; it was the main family home for the Parrs,

Catherine Parr Catherine Parr ( – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until Henry's death on 28 January 1547. Catherine was the final queen consort o ...

and Anne Parr also, after their father's death, until 1531. It passed in 1577 to Joyce Frankland from her husband William. The Frankland family sold it to the Baeshe family, in 1619. It was later the setting of the Rye House Plot. In 1683, when the putative plot was actively being discussed, it was occupied by

Richard Rumbold Richard Rumbold (1622–1685) was a Parliamentarian soldier and political radical, exiled for his role in the 1683 Rye House Plot and later executed for taking part in the 1685 Argyll's Rising. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, he joine ...

, one of the conspirators. It was bought by the Fieldes family in 1676,Anthony Emery, ''Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: East Anglia, Central England, and Wales'' (2000), pp. 289–91
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in the person of the Hertford MP Edmund Feilde (or Field). A short film was made about the Rye House Plot in the late 1920s.

From the 19th century

By 1834 Rye House had become a

workhouse In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as Scottish poorhouse, poorh ...

. Subsequently (William) Henry Teale developed it into a tourist attraction, buying the house and 50 acres in 1864. There were a maze and a bowling green, among other features.

Edward Walford Edward Walford (1823–1897) was an England, English magazine editor and a compiler of educational, biographical, genealogical and touristic works, perhaps best known for the final four volumes of ''Old and New London'' (Cassell (publisher), Cas ...

, ''Greater London: a narrative of its history, its people and its places'', vol. 1 (1894), p. 56
archive.org
An affray there in 1885 between Catholic excursionists and Orangemen led to a question in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. In 1911 it was described as a hotel. For many years the

Great Bed of Ware The Great Bed of Ware is an extremely large oak four poster bed, carved with marquetry, that was originally housed in the White Hart Inn in Ware, England. Built by Hertfordshire carpenter Jonas Fosbrooke about 1590, the bed measures 3.38m long a ...

was on display. The

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

was put to uses including growing water cress."Oh! It really is a wery pretty garden/And Rye'ouse from the cock-loft could be seen/where the chickweed man undresses/to bathe 'mong the water cresses/If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.." Music Hall song of the late 19th century, sung by Gus Elenbr>
/ref> The part that had been filled in was excavated in the 1980s.

Geography

The local geography played a significant part in the history of the house. At Hoddesdon the

River Stort The River Stort is a river in Essex and Hertfordshire, England. It is long and flows from near the village of Langley to the River Lea at Hoddesdon. The river's name is a back-formation from the name of the town of Bishop's Stortford. The 1 ...

runs into the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in the East of England and Greater London. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Cr ...

, and the area was often flooded. The lord of the manor of Rye maintained a bridge over the Lea, and a causeway. The causeway became part of the coaching road via

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...

into East Anglia. File:Rye House 1777 Forster1.jpg, Engraving from 1777, showing the gatehouse brickwork before restoration. By 1795 some of this brickwork had gone.R. T. Andrews, ''The Rye House and its Plot'', p. 146, in Percy Cross Standing (editor), ''Memorials of Old Hertfordshire'' (1905
archive.org
File:Rye House 1777 Forster2.jpg, View from the road (1777 engraving), facing south-west File:Rye House 1793 Turner.jpg, A 1793 watercolour by

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbu ...

File:Rye House Plot.jpg, Rye House, 1823 engraving. The long building was a barn and malting-house, then used as a workhouse File:Rye-House-Excursions-poster.jpg, Poster from around 1880, advertising excursions to Rye House from London terminuses File:Rye House EH New.jpg, Engraving by Edmund Hort New from an 1897 edition of ''

The Compleat Angler ''The Compleat Angler'' (the spelling is sometimes modernised to ''The Complete Angler'', though this spelling also occurs in first editions) is a book by Izaak Walton, first published in 1653 by John and Richard Marriot, Richard Marriot in Lon ...

References

External links

Gatehouse page
{{Listed buildings in Hertfordshire, G1 1443 establishments in England Buildings and structures completed in 1443 Parr family Tudor England Houses in Hertfordshire Grade I listed buildings in Hertfordshire Grade I listed houses Lee Valley Park Hoddesdon Country houses in Hertfordshire Scheduled monuments in Hertfordshire Catherine Parr