Mysterious Minster Lovell in the mist….

 

It doesn’t seem possible now that it was 30th April 2014 when my late husband and I paid an early-morning visit to Minster Lovell. There was a mist and we were virtually alone. The River Windrush, surely one of the loveliest little rivers in England, whispered past the old ruins of Sir Francis Lovell‘s ancient seat. On such a quiet morning, with the mist barely moving, it was only too possible to imagine the ghosts of those who had once lived there. Certainly it was easy to believe the old legend about Francis Lovell, great friend and supporter of Richard III, being walled up for safety in a room, only for the plan to go wrong and his skeleton was discovered many years later. On that misty morning the story didn’t seem to be fiction, but fact. Or maybe it is fact…go to the Oxford Mail. Was that Francis’ skeleton?

Indeed, so otherworldly was the atmosphere that morning that I felt time was about to turn back, and I’d see the great old house in its heyday. But no, the ruins were all I saw. My imagination could do the rest.

As my husband and I were leaving, and the mist was beginning to rise, I took one last photograph (see above). This is how I will always remember Minster Lovell.