Tucked away down lanes, behind hedges, in parkland and even ringed by moats, are some astonishing historic houses, with owners willing to share their secrets. ROWAN MANTELL met a Norfolk couple whose home is a stunning hunting ground for history-lovers.
Margaret was picking at flaking plaster when the claw emerged. Fierce grey lines scrabbled from the wall and, as the outer layer crumbled away, a hound, painted almost 500 years ago, stared back at her.
Today the long attic room at Old Hall, South Burlingham, is alive with huntsmen and horses, forest and foliage, unleashed after centuries beneath up to nine layers of lime-wash.
The remarkable paintings are just part of the story of a fascinating house, a few miles south of Acle, which Margaret and Peter Scupham bought, boarded-up and at risk of falling-down, 25 years ago.
Trespassers had lit fires in some of the main rooms, historic ceilings had been artexed, fireplaces blocked, partitions added and the roof was in a parlous state.
But Margaret, an artist, playwright, drama producer and teacher, and Peter, a writer, poet and teacher, fell for the unloved house at first sight and eventually managed to buy it from Norfolk County Council
They have devoted the past quarter of a century to looking after it, and uncovering and preserving as much of its history as possible.
Peter said local conservation officers had been enormously helpful. 'They held our hands and encouraged us and told us things weren't as bad as we thought!' said Peter. 'At one stage we got a survey which said anyone who takes this on is mad!'
The couple lived in outbuildings at first, gradually stripping away modifications to the house to discover vast Tudor fireplaces patterned with roses, original walls and ceilings, and 16th century oak floorboards.
But the almost miraculous emergence of the Tudor murals, from beneath centuries of paint and grime, might have saved the entire house from collapse, with the couple able to get a grant to safeguard the roof and the attic room.
'We had found bits of paint all around the house and I and a friend were up in one of the top rooms, unblocking a fireplace, when I saw a piece of loose plaster and pulled it away and saw a claw,' said Margaret. Soon a vibrant Labrador-like dog was looking back at her. Margaret and Peter called in experts and eventually discovered the entire attic gallery had been painted with monochrome hunting scenes, probably when the house was newly-built in the 1580s.
It was a time when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, Shakespeare was still a teenager, Norfolk was one of the richest regions in the country and Robert and Elizabeth Younger had big plans for their new Norfolk home.
As well as the Tudor hunters and their dogs and horses, roaming through woodland and meadow the entire length of the attic room, the mural includes buildings, including one which might reveal lawyer Robert Younger's original plans for his Norfolk house.
'Really it's just a farmhouse with a grand porch,' said Peter. But in the picture extra wings balance a building with a lavish three-storey entrance porch.
Robert and Elizabeth had a house in London too. Their daughter married playwright Robert Daborne in South Walsham church, and was living in the London house when she was due to give birth in 1609. Robert and Elizabeth went down to stay with her – but all three died within weeks of each other.
Their heirs seem never to have returned to the Old Hall although Margaret, who has staged Shakespeare plays in the garden, would love to present a play by Robert Daborne. He would have known the house and Margaret mused: 'Perhaps Shakespeare came here too…'
For a time the house was called Mermaid Manor, because of the charming plaster mermaid and merman on the porch. It was passed between several local landowning families until 1920, when Norfolk County Council converted it into two homes as part of a scheme to provide smallholdings for servicemen returning from the First World War.
There is even a ghost story – with an attic said to be haunted by a murdered man, found dead after playing a game of cards with his dog. The mystery might have been solved when a woman contacted Margaret and Peter to say that she grew up in the house; but she died the day before she was due to call round with the full story.
It is up in this attic room, off the main gallery, that more fragments of ancient paint are ghosting through layers .
And in a bedroom on the first floor there are flower-filled trellis patterns of historic decorative schemes.
Peter and Margaret are sure there is much more to find, but with no money to investigate, are happy to allow owners of the future to uncover more.
They live lightly within this Tudor treasure-house. No central heating system has ripped through old walls or shrivelled the historic fabric of the house.
'Most people wouldn't want to live like this,' said Peter. 'We haven't modernised much. If we had had money we might have simply thrown it at the house and ruined it!'
Instead they have filled the house with art, often made by visiting friends. Peter's son and his family live next door.
'We were originally looking for somewhere we could run courses,' said Peter. 'We wanted to make the house a place for things to happen. We showed people around, put on Shakespeare in the garden, had poetry picnics.
'We have never kept it to ourselves. We know quite well that even though, nominally, we are the owners, it's Norfolk's house and England's house, not ours, and we are very lucky to be able to live here.'
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