Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle, Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it, we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead—in a word, I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time, at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could only be known to three persons at once—viz. the Earl of Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they might take into their confidence.
The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when he should come of age. Still, however, when that time did arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall, Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two or three persons.
[CHAPTER XIII]
CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and staircases—Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House, Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples. The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and decay—as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire, pulled down in 1803—and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire, demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is, close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood, as recorded by Scott![1]
[Footnote 1: Vide Introduction to The Fair Maid of Perth]