Cowbright: Cogges Manor House

Today we visited Cogges Manor House, the location of the fictional Yew Tree Farm where outdoor scenes of Downton Abbey are sometimes filmed. Ronnie listened attentively to our guide and of course I spent most of my time running around taking photos. I asked him if he would write my blog for me tonight - thank you, Ronnie!

Cogges Manor House

England has lots of old places and Cogges Manor House and Farm is one of them. The main house dates back over 800 years, but that’s rather young. It stands next to a Norman-era church dating back 1000 years. The Manor’s crooked walls, sloping floors and sagging roofs make me glad I was born in the 20^th century. Most of our houses won’t last a hundred years, but then neither will I.

barn with old stone floor, animal stalls and dovecotes

We experienced an excellent tour of the Farm Museum led by a volunteer named Pam. She knew her Saxon, Norman, and Tudor history and walked us through the Manor’s various buildings and rooms and their uses over the ages. She narrated details of ownership, who built what, when and why. I won’t bore you with all that, but she made her history teacher proud.

view of house from garden

The grounds of the Farm included an orchard, a kitchen garden and yards for chickens and pigs. It was lovely and peaceful (except for a couple of large roosters trying to out crow one another). Pam mentioned that a local troupe puts on an outdoor Shakespeare play at the Farm and people of the Cogges turn out to enjoy it. I asked her if she could understand the humor and plot twists in the plays and she replied, “Of course. Human nature has not changed since they were written.”

rocking horse in nursery

visiting kids dress up and learn to polish riding boots

one of the homes owners that did a lot of renovation

I’ll end with a story to her point. One ruler (William III, I think) filled government coffers by taxing the number of fireplaces in a home (Fire Tax). It didn’t work too well because people lied about the number of fireplaces in their homes. The Fire Tax was soon replaced with a Window Tax - a tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was easy for an appraiser to walk around and count the windows. True to their nature, however, homeowners bricked up window spaces to reduce their taxes. The tax was called “Daylight Robbery.”