A woman has been left gobsmacked after discovering a secret room in her house – but the history surrounding it is terrifying.
Abi, who is known as @abihookwayproperty on TikTok, explained how she bought a Grade II listed house as a holiday home and was renovating it when she discovered a secret trap door.
Pointing at the building from the outside, she said in her video: “You see the window up there? There’s no room to it because that is a priest hole.
“Back in the day, when they used to go around killing all the priests, they would hide a priest in there.” Following this, she is seen venturing up to the secret room to show her viewers what’s on the inside.
After reaching the top floor, she moves a cabinet out of the way before lifting up the carpet to reveal the floorboards.
Opening up a small door in the floorboards, she shows viewers the tiny room underneath, which is now filled with spiders and cobwebs.
In the 16th Century, religious beliefs could be a matter of life and death. According to Historic UK, hiding places or ‘priest’s holes’ were built in to certain houses in in case there was a raid.
A statement reads: “Priest holes were built in fireplaces, attics and staircases and were largely constructed between the 1550s and the Catholic-led Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
“Sometimes other building alterations would be made at the same time as the priest’s holes so as not to arouse suspicion.
“The priest hole was usually tiny, with no room to stand up or move around. During a raid the priest would have to stay as still and silent as possible, for days at a time if necessary.
“Food and drink would be scarce and sanitation non-existent. Sometimes a priest would die in a priest hole from starvation or from lack of oxygen.
“Meanwhile the priest-hunters or ‘pursuivants’ would be measuring the footprint of the house from the outside and the inside to see if they tallied; they would count the windows outside and again from the inside; they would tap on the walls to see if they were hollow and they would tear up floorboards to search underneath.”
People were taken aback by the eerie history when the story was shared online – and many took to the comments section to leave their thoughts.
Commenting on her video, one user said: “OMG that’s so crazy.” Another user added: “You brave girl.” A third user said: “That’s such an exciting find!”
