Site of Manor House at Milcote (Milcote Castle)

1 1567: Ludovic Grevell obtained Royal Licence to build and embattle a new house at Milcote and call it Mountgrevell. This he began but never completed. The ruins were still standing in 1730. It is not quite clear whether it was this or the Old Manor House (PRN 1340) that was burnt by Parliamentary troops in 1644.
2 The wife of the farmer of Milcote Hall, said that about 1943 foundations were ploughed up in the proximity of the published site. There is nothing to be seen there now, the field being arable and under crop.
3 Material collected in the late 1950s included quantities of Post Medieval/Imperial pottery, glass, tile and a fragment of iron.
4 A burnt area under plough presumably indicates that this was the building burnt by Parliamentary troops.
5, 6 An order dated 4th December 1644 was signed by the Coventry Committee, headed by William Purefoy, to blow up the roof of Milcote House with 3 barrels of powder so as to make it unfit for use as a Royalist garrison. This was partly as a reaction to The Royalists garrisoning Campden House in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire and also Lark Stoke manor, near Ilmington, Warwickshire. At midday on Thursday the 5th December 1644, 200 horses, under the command of Major Joseph Hawkesworth (later governor of Warwick Castle), arrived at Milcote house. The Earl of Middlesex’s steward was the only man living at the house and was given a mere 2 hours to remove what he could before the house was fired in 3 or 4 places. Troops then stayed until dark to make sure the house burned. Most of its fittings and contents went with it.
7 Lidar images show the platform of the main house survives in the north-west corner of the HER mounment area, despite ploughing (B Gethin pers. Comm.). It is approximately rectangular being 110m NE-SW and 80m NW-SE.