Boscobel House

Boscobel House is an early 17th-century timber-framed building in Shropshire that served variously as a hunting lodge and farmhouse, but owes its fame entirely to a single night in September 1651. After his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, the future King Charles II hid here from Cromwell's Parliamentarian forces — first concealed within a priest hole inside the house, then, according to enduring tradition, up in an oak tree on the grounds while soldiers searched below. That escape gave England 'Oak Apple Day', still commemorated on 29 May each year. Managed today by English Heritage, the house and its formal garden are open to visitors, who can tour the intimate rooms, inspect the surviving priest hole, and see a direct descendant of the legendary Royal Oak growing in the grounds.