Soulton Hall

Old Sir Rowland Hill’s ancient manor is the landmark Tudor heritage estate that bridges England to the roots of its greatest stories and foundations.

Visitors step into the landscape that inspired the hard-won harmony of Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’—Soulton Hall is a Renaissance puzzle in brick and stone, forged in a time of peril and built for the ages.

Described in a special Tudor season finale episode of The Rest Is History podcast as “the Tudor Da Vinci Code,” guests discover a hidden history of coded architecture, secret rooms, and an underground alliance bound by a shared, concordant cultural vision to heal social fractures and reconjure the Golden Age for the dawning of Elizabethan England.

Here, the Tudor hero ‘Old’ Sir Rowland preserved the shield and intellectual shape of classical philosophy, the memory of ancient London, and the legacy of Erkenwald—the seventh-century Saxon law-giver of a nascent capital’s liberties and patron saint whose shrine proportions and saved relics are echoed within the architecture.

Through a master plan that waited centuries to be seen clearly, Rowland embedded enduring principles while weathering and resisting the devastation of the Tudor purges across shifting reigns of repression and terror.

Looking forward from nearly 500 years ago, across generations, he held a deliberate, hopeful patience for better days when things hidden could be shared again and fellowship restored.

The recent feature on the globally renowned podcast ‘The Rest Is History’ explored what historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook highlighted as an estate recognized as a house full of profound mysteries.

Constructed as a coded message in stone during the perilous tumult of the Counter-Reformation under Mary Tudor, the building uses sophisticated humanist codes drawing from geometry, philosophy, classical antiquity, and scripture. It stands as a monument to the dangerous political and social work of Tudor statecraft—serving as a protective network that secured cultural treasures and matters of conscience against iconoclasm. It is also considered possible that Matthew Parker, godfather to Elizabeth I and her first Archbishop of Canterbury, found a safe haven here.

Within its thick walls lie remarkable features: a concealed chapel, multiple hidden bookcases, a rare Rithmomachia (the philosopher’s game of numbers) floor in the prayer room, and a priest’s hide in Hill’s studiolo. Research indicates that the house functioned as a strategic base for the affairs of state that delivered the influential Geneva Bible to England, alongside other significant texts spanning medicine, classical history, politics, and geography.

Furthermore, ongoing historical and archaeological work points to Soulton as the final resting place for the saved altar stone of Old St Paul’s Cathedral and relics associated with Saint Erkenwald.

Earlier phases of the manor’s history reach back into Saxon times and feature the archaeology of a “lost castle” rediscovered through multi-season excavations by DigVentures.

It also encompasses the high medieval complex known to the Lodge family prior to Sir Rowland Hill’s arrival—linking the site directly to Thomas Lodge, author of Rosalynde (the primary source book for As You Like It).The wider landscape features the modern Soulton Long Barrow, reviving an ancient monumental architectural form.

In the precincts of the house, a dancing pavement reflects the choreography of the dance of harmony closing ‘As You Like It’, framed by views toward woodland associated with the play’s Forest of Arden setting.

Near the non-invasively investigated spot associated with the translation of Saint Erkenwald, visitors can also view ‘Feretory’ a sculptor exploring these deep historical connections.

The hall represents the corps de logis of a much larger complex from Sir Rowland Hill’s era. Surviving portions include a seventeenth-century courtroom featuring distinctive round windows, which served as the venue for an aborted witch trial in the late 1600s.

Sir Rowland’s foundational connections to early modern English culture are celebrated today through dramatic performances held once again in and around the historic buildings. Among the most remarkable personal survivals inside the house is Sir Rowland Hill’s rare Chair of Estate, a stunning piece of Tudor state furniture that served as his seat of office when he presided over major legal inquests, parliamentary matters, and civic duties as Lord Mayor. This sits alongside his giant oak Justice Table.

The building continues to be occupied by descendants of his family.

====Acknowledgement: the above summary contains intellectual property of the country house expert James D. Wenn of BYRGA GENIHT, who is engaged ongoing consultancy at Soulton.