"Huddington Court, with its moat, its priest-holes, was the ancestral home of the Winters, and has played a notable part in many a stirring scene intimately connected with some of the most romantic and fascinating pages of English history. It was at Huddington Court that the famous Gunpowder Plot was in part hatched, Robert Winter (or Wintour, or again Wyntour), the then owner of the Court, being one of the chief conspirators with Thomas, his redoubtable brother. It was at that top window, under the great gable, shown in your excellent photograph, that Lady Mary Winter stood to watch the horseman who should bring her news as to the success, or failure, of the Plot. The prearranged signal was a raised hand (in case of success), and it is an easy matter to picture her look of eagerness and poignant inquiry as she caught a glimpse of the mounted messenger coming down the very road where in all probability you left your car whilst inspecting the Court. As the horseman drew near, what, think you, must have been her feelings when with bowed head he clattered onwards without a sign? There was no necessity for a spoken word; she knew only too well that the Plot had failed, and that the consequences must be swift and terrible. So in truth they were. "Riding like fiends before the breath of destruction the conspirators fled into the night, and from London and elsewhere converged, one and all, upon the Court House of Huddington. The day after the discovery of the Plot they were all assembled there, and received absolution at the hands of a priest who had journeyed post-haste from Coughton Court, another historic old home in the neighbourhood. Under the shadow of the Court, just across the moat, you will remember the little church into which you failed to obtain entrance; there it was that the conspirators met in those last solemn rites of the church. Then as a last desperate effort they rode forth to raise the countryside. They visited Hewell Grange, and failing to enlist the sympathy, or assistance, of the then Lord Windsor or his followers, they turned to and sacked the place, carrying away with them arms and ammunition from its well-stored armoury. By this time the forces of armed justice were close upon their heels, and their plight was desperate indeed. Fate played into the hands of their pursuers, and they found themselves 'hoist with their own petard,' for crossing the Stour (then in flood) the bags of gunpowder attached to their saddles became wet. They presently dismounted and carried them into an inn so that they might dry before the open fire. During the risky operation a spark flew out from the fire and blew the majority of the conspirators to atoms. Leaving the injured to their own devices, the remaining portion of the band clambered again into the saddle and made off in every direction. Thomas Winter, with several other desperate companions, turned to bay in a house near by, where a hand-to-hand fight ensued of a most sanguinary character.