Secrets Behind the Bar: The Real Story of Yorkshire’s Priest Holes

If these stone walls could talk, they’d probably tell you to keep your voice down.

Standing behind the bar on a quiet Friday morning with a duster in hand, it’s easy to take the old woodwork and heavy timber for granted. However, when you run a place that has welcomed weary travellers since 1307, the past isn't just something in a guidebook; it’s practically on the inventory. Many generations have walked these flagstones, and like them, I spend my working days standing just inches away from one of the most perilous chapters in English history: our double priest hole.

Back during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, practicing Catholicism was seen as high treason. Holding Mass could cost a family their land, their livelihood, or their heads. The Crown sent out ruthless hunters called "pursuivants" who were professional man-hunters whose sole job was to turn homes and coaching inns upside down sniffing out Catholic priests.

That’s where men like Nicholas Owen came in. Owen was a Jesuit lay brother and a brilliant master carpenter who spent twenty years travelling under cover of darkness to build hiding spots across the country. He worked entirely alone, late at night, so nobody ever knew the blueprints. He dug into hollowed-out chimney flues, doubled up stone cavity walls, and created false floorboards beneath heavy stair treads.

The physical reality of these spaces is horrifying by modern standards. A priest hole wasn't a secret room with a leather armchair; it was often a cramped, pitch-black cavity barely three feet wide. The priest would crawl in, curl into a ball, and listen to the floorboards groan above as search parties ransacked the building.

The searches weren't over in an hour, either. Pursuivants would move in and camp out for days and sometimes up to a fortnight. They measured rooms with tape from the inside and outside to check for mismatched depths. They ripped down plaster, tore up floorboards, poked long iron spikes through woodwork, and set fires in hearths to see if smoke leaked into hidden voids.

Inside the hole, a priest had to remain dead silent, no matter how bad the cramp got, living on nothing more than crusts of bread and small sips of water or ale fed through narrow reed tubes hidden in the wall joins. If he coughed, sneezed, or shifted a boot against stone, it was over.

Which brings us to why ours is so special.

We have what’s known as a double priest hole. The concept behind it was as brilliant as it was desperate. Hunters knew about single hides, and once they tore open a false panel and found it empty or caught a decoy hiding inside like a younger priest or choir boy they usually assumed the building was cleared and moved on. A double hide took advantage of that false sense of security. You’d open the outer compartment, think you’d discovered the secret, but tucked behind a second, disguised partition was the true bolt-hole.

Standing right where the barkeeps and innkeepers before us stood, pouring an ale while armed searchers stomped through the rooms looking for blood, puts a proper perspective on a busy evening rush.

Over seven centuries, the Old Bridge Inn has seen plagues, civil wars, monarchs come and go, and countless generations of locals sitting by the fire putting the world to rights. But knowing that right behind our beer pumps lies a hideout that once stood between life and death for a terrified human being never fails to stop me in my tracks.

Next time you’re propping up the bar, take a look at the stonework behind the hanging wine board. Have a pint, take in the warmth, and remember the days when a loose board or a creaking hinge was all that stood between sanctuary and the gallows.

Don't be afraid to ask the staff they'll happily share the history and show you where it is xx