Aston Hall

Yesterday we went to visit Aston Hall, a jacobean style mansion, built 1618-1631 by the Holte family. It was damaged by Parliamentarians in a siege in 1643 (cannon ball holes which have been patched can be seen in the walls of one wing of the house and a large hole in the oak staircase). The house was built and owned by someone named Sir Thomas Holte who had a horrible reputation for his temper. Our tour guide even told us a horrific story about Sir Thomas hitting his chef over the head with a butcher's knife and killing him because dinner was not ready on time. He disowned a son for marrying a woman who came from a family that was not as rich as he would have liked, and there is even a rumour that he locked away a daughter for refusing to marry a man he had chosen for her and letting her starve to death.
The Hall remained in the Holte family for a few hundred years before it was purchased by a group of bankers for a small amount of time (they sold off a lot of the surrounding land). The Hall was purchased in the mid 1800s by the Birmingham City Council and became a museum which it is still today. Fortunately the house is still very much the same as it was when it was first built, there have been some changes but no major changes to the architecture of the house.
Afterwards we wandered across the street to wander through the graveyard at Aston Parish Church. It was really creepy but pretty neat! The church actually predates the house (the main tower was built in 1480).