Tudor Women day 5

Tudor Women day 5 Today we had an extra little trip to the Parish Church in Great Bedwyn to see where Jane Seymour’s father lies. She grew up around the village as her father was the warden of Severnake forest a minor branch of the great Seymour family. The main places to see today were the Vyne near Basingstoke followed by Syon House on the Thames opposite Kew gardens. We had arranged a private tour of the house with just us before the public got in. The Vyne was a great Tudor mansion and we know that Henry VIII stayed there on 4 occasions, twice with Catherine of Aragon and once with Anne Boleyn. The long gallery is the finest oak panelled gallery left intact from the Tudor period and has many carved motifs on the panels some rather curios, a Tudor rose and a pomegranate growing from the same stem for example. The other incredible thing at the Vyne are the stained glass windows in the chapel. There are of Henry Catherine and Henry’s sister Margaret each has their own panel and they are kneeling down with the own patron saint looking down on them. These windows actually come from the nearby church and were taken down during the civil war and hidden in a pond to prevent Cromwells troops from smashing them to pieces. They are said to be the finest in England outside the Kings college chapel in Cambridge. We then travelled up the M3into London to Syon house, the home of the Duke of Northumberland since 1547. Originally an Abbey dating from 1415, The place has been re-modelled a lot over the centuries and the long gallery has been transformed into a ladies withdrawing room. It was here that the Duke proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen, she didn’t want the job and eventually paid with her life. I always try to talk to the room guides wherever we go and today something quite extraordinary happened. One of the guides turned out to the father of the bride who we saw coming out of St Peters chapel in the Tower of London on Saturday! How incredible is that!