WORKMEN engaged on restoration work at Coughton Court, the Elizabethan-age home of the Throckmorton family now owned by the National Trust, have discovered a small secret room which may once have been used as a hiding place during religious upheavals in England almost 400 years ago.

It was found directly underneath a large cupboard known by the family to have been some sort of hiding place and has a secret listening panel to enable fugitives to hear what was happening in the room beyond.

While the description of the secret room as a priest's hiding place is purely speculative it has not been ruled out, for further research may be done to discover its true purpose.

Mr Stewart Jones, a representative of the National Trust, which acquired the court in 1945, told a report they had not had much time to do any research and at the moment it was a discovery which could not be explained.

There are two other known hiding places. One is in the turret and the other where it is generally known as the "big room".