Jonathan Thomas (00:21)
Welcome to the Anglotopia podcast where we explore British history, travel and culture. And I am your host, Jonathan Thomas. One of the things we love doing on this podcast is introducing our American listeners to places in Britain they may have never heard of, places that aren't on the obvious tourist trail, but that have history woven into every stone, every beam and every room.

Today's guest is Magnus Birch Throckmorton, the place he's going to tell us about is Coughton Court, a Tudor manor house in Warwickshire that his family has called home for 600 years. 600 years! To put that in perspective, the Throckmorton family moved into Coughton Court before Columbus sailed for America. And the history doesn't stop there. This is a house that has stood at the heart of some of the most dramatic moments in English history from the court.

of Henry VIII, the gunpowder plot of 1605. It has priest holes hidden in its walls, relics of the family that risked everything to keep their Catholic faith alive through decades of persecution. has portraits, treasures, and gardens that speak to six centuries of survival and continuity. Now, after a period in which the day-to-day running of Coughton Court was managed by the National Trust, Magnus and his wife Imogene are personally taking the reins, opening the gates themselves, welcoming visitors.

and sharing this extraordinary place with the public in a new and more personal way. And I'm happy to say, Coughton Court officially reopened a few weeks ago in March. And so the new chapter has begun. So Magnus, welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast, and thank you for taking the time to introduce your home to our American audience.

Magnus (01:58)
Thank you very much. ⁓ Yeah, we opened less than a month ago, so it's been ⁓ busy doing it. It's been a really exciting month actually of seeing a lot of hard work and everything come to the fore. But yeah, it's been lovely welcoming people into our home and showing them the family history and what we've been doing in the last few months.

Jonathan Thomas (02:19)
Well, let's talk about that history. This is where I grill you on dates and facts and you hope you get it right. So the Throckmorton family has been at Coughton since 1409. That's more than 600 years of unbroken connection of one place. What does that kind of continuity feel like from the inside? Does it feel like a way to privilege or both?

Magnus (02:40)
The simple answer is both. It's incredibly exciting, quite scary that your ancestors are looking down at you judging every step of the way and they've got the lovely portraits as you walk up the stairs so you can't get away from them and everything but it's also a huge privilege to be the latest custodian of Coughton Court It's been looked after by many different members of my family.

And this is just the next chapter of us looking after it for our two small children, Hector and Isabella.

Jonathan Thomas (03:11)
So you've now taken on the day-to-day running of Coughton Court and you and your wife are raising your own children there. What does it mean to you to be passing this place on to another generation and raising kids in this special place?

Magnus (03:23)
Isabella and Hector were probably the most recent child, children born here in about 300 years because obviously usually when people inherit they're in their late 40s, early 50s but it skipped a generation to go from my grandmother to myself. So my wife and I moved in when we were, I was 30, she was slightly younger. ⁓ So Isabella and Hector had been born here. to have the...

children running around the house, scooting up and down the paths. It's not all fun and games. They are put to work. My daughter is very good at watering on a Saturday. Mainly she waters the paths, not the plants, which is probably a thing. Otherwise, gardeners would tell us off. actually, no, it's to have that purpose of the two youngsters. That's the thing that really drives both, me and I forward for this because everything we do is looking after it for them.

Jonathan Thomas (04:17)
Well, how amazing it would be to grow up in a place like that with so many hidden rooms and corridors and meeting people from all over the world. It's got to be, I can't even imagine what it would be like.

Magnus (04:29)
They're young enough at the moment that hide-and-seek is not a game that they play very well So when they hide it's behind the curtains or something like that Slightly dreading it when they have they're slightly older and they start playing hide-and-seek for real ⁓ Thankfully, I don't think they'll be able to get down the priest hiding hole, but you never know. Knowing my son he's keen ⁓ to do stuff that lots of 18 months old don't do

Jonathan Thomas (04:37)
You

That'd be months before you find them,

Magnus (04:54)
Please don't say that. It's actually one of the things that really makes me

nervous is when they run off and you think, where on earth have they got to?

Jonathan Thomas (05:01)
so for our American listeners who are completely new to hearing about Coughton Court, can you give us the big picture? What kind of place is it and what makes it so historically significant?

Magnus (05:12)
I think the main, the first thing to say is it's still a family home. So it was like the family moved in 1409 as you said earlier, but Coughton is still a family home. It is my family's house. We're still around with present it's lived in. And I think that's a really important facet because it keeps it.

modern day we're living here it's still breathing it's still living it's still evolving as we talk about it's not a statue in time but it's a Tudor house ⁓ just outside of Stratford-pon-Avon ⁓ it used to be four-sided but one of the sides got burned down and my mother and my grandmother redesigned the gardens in 1991 so brought it back to life and the gardens are now award-winning and really special but it's

It's a snapshot in history of a family's time through for the last 600 years with lots of different artifacts and relics and the way the house has been designed, changed, adapted over time. But it really tells the story of one family who've stayed true to being Catholic the whole way through.

Jonathan Thomas (06:20)
And I must say, I always enjoy seeing when these houses are still lived in by the families because if they're not lived in anymore and they've been left by the family, they feel like mausoleums. They don't feel lived in. They don't feel cozy. But when you see the family still living there, always makes the visit a little more enjoyable because you know people are living there.

Magnus (06:42)
It's modern day pictures of my daughter in her riding her bicycle with her bright pink helmet on. It's photos of our sons christening our wedding. It's actually just showing that the rooms are still being used. We still use them, we still enjoy using them, but it's incredibly lucky that we're able to welcome people into the house to show them the history and what the family's been through.

Jonathan Thomas (07:09)
So the house dates to the early Tudor period. The great gatehouse was built around 1530 by Sir George Throckmorton during the reign of Henry VIII. Sir George was actually a courtier to Henry VIII, but famously opposed the king's break with Rome and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. That was a dangerous position to take. What do we know about Sir George in that specific moment in history?

Magnus (07:33)
We can only go off bits we've been told and bits that have been researched. So I think everything has to be taken with slight degrees of pinch of sort. In all retrospects, he was a little bit of a troublemaker from what I've read up and what I've learned about him. He was someone who has obviously got on very well with the king because if he didn't, he wouldn't have stayed alive and kept on going with being able to accuse the king.

when he opposed Anne Boleyn's wedding. He refused because he said it is wrong to have meddled with both mother and sister and to which the king was to replied it was never with the mother. So he obviously had a ⁓ nature of. ⁓

ability to push the boundaries as like as it were ⁓ and he openly opposed it he stayed the marriage of Anne Boleyn and he he did attend the coronation and everything but he

He only escaped by making a complete, he asked for complete forgiveness from the king and everything like that. The other interesting fact about Sir George was that he had 19 children and 112 grandchildren. quite a character.

Jonathan Thomas (08:50)
So there's lots of Throckmortons running around.

Magnus (08:52)
Yes,

yes, lots of Throckmortons I think it was eight sons and 11 daughters in total and then 112 grandchildren after that, which in those times was a huge number to survive in Texas. Yeah, exactly. and cold.

Jonathan Thomas (09:07)
So happens when there's no TV, right?

So the Throckmorton family remains staunchly Catholic through the Reformation, a period when practicing Catholicism in England could cost you your freedom or your life. And hidden in the walls of Coughton Court are priest holes, secret chambers built to hide the Catholic clergy. Can you tell us about those and what was life like for the family during those years of persecution? How did they?

kind of walk that fine line between the two sides.

Magnus (09:40)
I think walking the line between the two sides ⁓ doesn't do it justice because the persecution of the Catholics at that time was huge. I think for every service that ⁓ a landowner was not present at, it was a £20 fine and things like that. they were persecuted hugely. And I think it was one of those times where the more we read about it, the more we learn about it, the more you start

to understand why there was such upset and so people were so keen for their faith to keep going and they weren't being allowed to do this, they weren't being allowed to do that. ⁓ And I think it was one of those times where it made the small group of Catholics

Catholics stronger and stronger together and they were more and more of support of each other because it was a very small group who remained Catholic throughout that period. ⁓ The priest hiding holes, we've got one at Coughton which is a double priest hiding hole. It's great fun, I've been down it. It's not the best hidden if I'm entirely honest. You go to some other places, you go to Harvington Hall which was another Throckmorton house which Nicholas Owen, the main...

priest hole hide maker was and he's completely changed the levels of the house. There's seven priest hiding holes there that they know of but he's moved staircases and everything. Coughton's is very much in one of the towers and it's been done as a double priest hiding hole so you'd look down and find the first one and think that there was no one there and it was an empty hole and actually underneath it was another priest hiding hole. So Coughton was used, there were Jesuit priests

at Coughton and everything, but no one we believe was ever found here.

Jonathan Thomas (11:35)
I'm getting claustrophobic just thinking about it. So, and then there's the gunpowder plot of 1605, one of the most dramatic events in English history that's still ⁓ commemorated, I guess is the word you could use every November 5th.

Magnus (11:49)
Yes, some people celebrate it and I think people forget the

meaning of it at times if I'm entirely honest with you. Yes, exactly.

Jonathan Thomas (11:56)
of, we could make the same argument for the Fourth of July. ⁓

And it's a story most Americans may not even know a lot about. So, Coughton Court was right at the center of it. So, can you walk us through the famous connection to the plot and what happened on that famous night?

Magnus (12:13)
I'm going to say a couple of things. The Throckmortons weren't at the centre of it. They were very much involved, but they were a step out from the main plotters because through marriage and things like that, I'm going get to that. I think if...

you must do an entire episode on the Gunpowder Plot. It's such an intricate web of lies and the stories that come out of it and conspiracy theories and was this person a traitor from the beginning, etc. is fantastic. But the Throckmortons were not directly implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. They were ⁓

one step away would be the way of it. So it was the Throckmorton wives who were heavily linked. So Sir Robert Catesby's mother was Anne Throckmorton, who was a half sister of Thomas who was living at Coughton, who owned Coughton at the time. Frances Tresham's mother was Muriel Throckmorton as well. So the Throckmortons were linked but never necessarily by name. So none of the plotters had a Throckmorton name to it.

But the main thing was that Edward Digby rented Coughton off Thomas for his family to be at to hear whether the plot succeeded or failed. And the story goes that Nicholas Owen, Father Garnet ⁓ and Father Tessimond were here with Lady Digby and Ann Vaulx.

their servants when Thomas Bates, the servant of Sir Robert Catesby came up to them or had brought two letters to Lady Digby in Father Garnet basically saying the plots had failed, we're in trouble. ⁓ And they were said to be sitting in, we've got a blue drawing room which is in the gate house at the time when it happened when the news that it had failed.

So we were

bystanders and heavily linked, but our name was never one of the main plotters, if that makes sense.

Jonathan Thomas (14:23)
Well, that's good. So you didn't, yeah.

Magnus (14:24)
Probably the reason we're here today and have managed to keep

Coughton in the family and things like that.

Jonathan Thomas (14:30)
Well, that and apologies. This isn't on my list of questions, but I was reading the next question. I'm like, wait, we got to talk about that. So going beyond the Reforomation into the English Civil War era, how did the what was the House's role in English Civil War? Which side were the Throckmortons on?

Magnus (14:48)
So the parliamentarians attacked it in 1642. They occupied it and the royalists later used it as a, or they attempted to retake it. The house was left in a complete ruin by the end of it. And yeah, it took a few of my previous ancestors to build it back up to get it going again. But yeah, it was used.

I think the exact wording is sacked and plundered, ⁓ leaving it in a state of ruin.

Jonathan Thomas (15:21)
So beyond the Tudor era, the civil wars, and then Catholic emancipation and two world wars, what are some other chapters of the house's history that you think are really interesting or deserve more attention?

Magnus (15:32)
I think one of the things that's never spoken about is the Throckmorton ladies, the women of Coughton and they've always been ⁓ strong-willed, independent, quite powerful and I think it's one of those things where...

The saying is the ladies are the ones who maintain and keep these houses going. They're the ones who put their life and soul into it and the character of it. So there are various things that happen to get the house back, but it's always been a Throckmorton house. It was a house that people was deemed never grand enough for some time. So if they had more land and things like that, they would go to Western Underwood, Buckland and places like that. But they'd return to Coughton when times were tough. ⁓

But I think some of the ladies of Coughton are the powerful ones. And I'm talking, A, some of the ladies that plotters for the Gunpowder plot, but all equally some of the more recent characters. So my grandmother, I think, was one of the first female QCs in the UK. And I think Lady Lillian, ⁓ by all accounts, was an incredible character who negotiated the current arrangement with the National Trust. I think...

sometimes these people are forgotten about in the grand stories.

a completely different way, different answer to what you're expecting, but I think they are, they're important to take, factor and take note of.

Jonathan Thomas (17:00)
Well, and you're so right, because a lot of ⁓ historical assessments of these places focus on male primogeniture But that's not the only story that these places have, because there was so much more than that.

Magnus (17:14)
completely. I mean another quirk was Coughton was designated a safe zone during the Second World War for the speaker of the House of Commons in case of a German invasion. we don't know a huge amount about it but we do know that was put as a house for the speaker of the House of Commons. So another quirk and fact.

Jonathan Thomas (17:38)
Interesting. So when an American visitor would walk through the gates of Coughton for the first time, what do they see? How do you describe it to someone who's never been there?

Magnus (17:49)
It's a Tudor house with

which has been adapted and changed with a stunning gatehouse with an incredibly lovely looking Cotswold Yellowstone that glints in the summer and the sunshine in dawn and dusk. It's got the old stables and award-winning gardens, but I hope what people will see past that as much as anything else is the family home, the family feel to it. ⁓

that it's a lived in home.

Jonathan Thomas (18:22)
So place it for us in the geography, where is Coughton Court?

Magnus (18:27)
So Coughton Court's in the middle of England. We've got a town five miles away from us, which is officially the furthest place from any bit of the sea in the country. So considering we're an island, we are bang in the center of it. We are about half an hour south of Birmingham and about an hour and a half north of London. So we're in the center of the country, just north of the Cotswolds, east of Wales.

in an amazing part of the country. So Shakespeare's country, Stratford upon Avon is 20 minutes to the south of us. ⁓ the way I'll always describe it to friends is we're not necessarily close to anywhere, but we're never that far away. So you can get to anywhere within an hour and a half, two hours basically, unless you go up to Scotland or Devon.

Jonathan Thomas (19:15)
Yeah, ⁓

so visitors who may be in London or the Cotswolds could easily get there if they just do a little bit of research. so it's easy to get to.

Magnus (19:22)
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So

we get a lot of people coming from the Cotswolds ⁓ who come up to Stratford and things like that. And then we are 15 minutes, 20 minutes further on. And yeah, we get a lot of people who visit us over here, up here as it were.

Jonathan Thomas (19:40)
So, other than the house itself, what are some must-see highlights inside the house, the rooms, the objects, the stories you think are most interesting?

Magnus (19:48)
going to give you three objects which I think all have a difference and something special about them and I'm going to give you one room. So the room I'm going to talk about is the panel dining room which to me embodies what one of these lovely houses is about. It's got paneled paneling all the way around it. It comes alive when it's the tables laid for

a meal, whether it's Christmas, whether it's Easter, the use of the fake candles with the flickering light through it at night. It's just one of the rooms that I think you have to see to appreciate it.

we are looking at doing some candlelit tours over the winter and things like that, so that you get the house through the darkness and everything. And I think the panel dining room with the wood effect just comes alive and is probably my favorite room in the house to use. It's...

You can sit there and just think what has happened within these walls? What has happened? What conversations have been had? What stories have been told? What scandals have happened? Just it's one of those rooms that to me personally is very invocative and makes you think and you can just sit and enjoy the company and the laughter and...

the general chitchat and just think what has happened in this room? What are the stories that have been told? Who's had their dinners here? Who's had their suppers here? What's been going on? And just to me personally, that is one of the highlights and is fantastic. But to me, the other items I was talking about was we've got a chemise that is believed to have been worn by Mary, Queen of Scots.

⁓ and they, at the time of her beheading, they think of this because there's a Latin inscription on it saying Mary Queen of Scots at her execution on the 8th of February 1587 and she was an incredibly tall lady so actually for those times it's a very long chemise and everything. So I think that's a really interesting Catholic

pieces at work, which is pretty special. ⁓ In the same room, we have a cape that we believe Catherine of Aragon used and her ladies-in-waiting worked on. So it's got the pomegranate ⁓ on the back of it and the needlework is incredibly fine and delicate and intrinsic. So I think if you look down the Catholic artifacts and things like that, I think those are the two items that to me jump out.

And then being a boy, there was a bet in 1811 between, Sir John Throckmorton and his mill owner that he would be able to shear two sheep and wear a coat between the hours of sunrise and sunset.

and was a thousand guinea bet shorn and sheared the sheep, they wove it, they dyed it, and it was worn that evening at the feast to win the bet. And I love the idea of the grandeur of the bet, the scale of the bet on something.

so minor. But I think the biggest travesty was the two sheep that were shorn were served at the banquet that evening. ⁓ for me, it's not going to be the best, it's not going to be the grandest thing in the house. It's not going to be probably something that necessarily catches someone's attention, but I just, I love the story behind it. I love the idea. They tried to recreate it here.

and they failed miserably which was a real shame because I was hoping they were going to make me a coat that would fit that I could wear but sadly it didn't survive and didn't make it quite so far. The old skills and the old techniques aren't there any longer.

Jonathan Thomas (23:47)
Hopefully you didn't eat the sheep that time.

So ⁓ the gardens at Coughton are award-winning. Your grandmother designed them in the 90s, and your mother continued developing them. So tell us about the gardens and what makes them so special.

Magnus (23:59)
So in gardening terms, incredibly young garden, my mother designed them for my grandmother, effectively in 1991, when she inherited. And one of the problems that we had was, I say we, the very well we are, four at the time, probably carrying pots, I like little plastic pots, was that it had been cut down. So my mum recreated the wall garden and we took out 22 skip loads of rubbish out of it.

and she wanted a garden that fitted in with the surroundings and the grandeur of Coughton so she wanted the formal Tudor Knot Garden in the courtyard.

going to the formal lawn and then just opening up into the vista of the countryside behind. So if you stand at the back of the gatehouse, you have this formal then semi-formal and then the wider landscape just opens up in front of you. Because Coughton didn't have that, so she built that into it and then...

she has gone around creating within the wall garden this really special rose labyrinth which a traditional English rose garden is just planted with roses whereas my grandmother and my mother wanted to have perennials and biennials within it so it's a bit of it's a bit of chaos

you're taken on a, it's a labyrinth, so there are dead ends, you don't necessarily get to where you're meaning to go to. ⁓ And it's all designed just to slow the person down, to appreciate the colors, the smells, what's going on about it. And it's somewhere that I've fallen in love with, if I'm honest, it's the most magical thing. And it's constantly being adapted, evolved.

tweak change. We created the ladies garden not that long ago which sits opposite the lake from the gentleman's walk. So it's a work in progress and the really exciting factor is my wife is now taking on more and more of the day-to-day management of the gardens and you're starting to see her input and her colour choices going into it.

Jonathan Thomas (26:08)
So what else is on the property other than the house and the garden? there churches as well? And what's the history of those?

Magnus (26:16)
So, the property these days. We've got the house, the stable yard, two churches, a lake and the gardens. The reason for having the two churches is there is the original church has been seen in the Doomsday book and everything but obviously was taken from the family during the persecutions. So the family afterwards built the Catholic church at the end of the drive.

So we have two different churches on site, which is an interesting quirk and quite interesting. I have ancestors buried in both churches, which always confuses people when they say you're Catholic, why are there people buried in the Protestant church? And you say, well, it was Catholic and it is now lot longer Catholic. So we like to keep people on their toes here at Coughton.

Jonathan Thomas (27:09)
So then, are there's one of them still Catholic and one of them still Protestant? okay. So that.

Magnus (27:14)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the one closest

to the house is Protestant and the one slightly further away is Catholic. ⁓

Jonathan Thomas (27:22)
Well that's

inconvenient on Sunday.

Magnus (27:25)
It is, it is. It's quite good for getting in your 10,000 steps though and making sure that you hit that goal and that target.

Jonathan Thomas (27:33)
I just think it's amusing you're in your house and you hear an Anglican service. I'm like, I don't hear it, I don't wanna hear it, nope, nope, nope.

Magnus (27:40)
Well, it's very nice when the church bells ring and things like that. It's a lovely quirk of Coughton actually and both churches are beautiful in their own rights and they have their own quirks and interests within them. ⁓ The stained glass in the Catholic Church is really special.

Jonathan Thomas (28:01)
So let's talk more about you taking over the management of the house. Coughton Court reopened last month under your direct management and this is a big new chapter for the house. So what does it mean to you personally to open the doors and welcome visitors in yourself?

Magnus (28:18)
It's almost taking it back 20 years when my grandmother was in charge of opening the doors to the public, innit? For me, it's always been about honouring what she used to do, how she used to do it, but also bringing Coughton into the 21st century with it.

It's fresh flowers around the house. It's telling the family stories. It's I've always said that Coughton is a lived in family house and for us it's building a community hub. It's putting Coughton back on the map and supporting local artists, local sculptures. And making I think one of the things that is happening in the world is.

everywhere is being squeezed in the community aspect never more so so actually if we can have somewhere that can do can bring people together doesn't matter from where or how then that's a really important aspect of us opening Koten and what we want to try and achieve and to use it to support other fantastic organizations we've got a dementia awareness day coming up later early next month

And think it's really important to be able to get people out into open space where they can benefit from the fresh air and they can benefit from the outdoors. And it's being able to do small projects like that that I think are really important.

Jonathan Thomas (29:46)
So what are some new features you've introduced to the house? I believe it's a new cafe, there's this new shop with local produce, a charity bookshop. Have these been like on your dream things to do if you took over management?

Magnus (30:00)
I Emi and I have an attitude that we'll try lots of things once and see how it goes. And we are listening to lots of different people's ideas about it. But with the cafe, I was really keen to support local producers. So our tea importer is 50 minutes away from us. Our coffee roasters is 20 minutes away.

and build a hub that works locally for everyone. So the cafe, we've gone down the seasonal local route for it. And actually we're finding that people are just popping in for a coffee, popping in for a dog walk and everything like that. But then we've put in a whole series of workshops from willow weaving to lino cutting to we've got a ⁓ botanical pottery class coming up.

in a couple of weeks. We've got three potters moving into the old stables. We've got Tai Chi and yoga that happen outside and in the coach house and just trying to create a little bit of a buzz around the place as well as supporting. We are opening for two sets of artists to come and ⁓ exhibit their works for two weeks at a time to a rose exhibition. We've sort of...

said we'll try lots of different things and we'll see what works and what doesn't work. ⁓ I'm really excited we're going into partnership, well not partnership that sound, but we're talking with a local chef about having a once a month supper club ⁓ and the trouble is every menu he sends across gets me salivating and thinking that sounds absolutely incredible so I'm thinking one a week but apparently it's one a month is enough and things like that. But it's just trying to...

Create a space for people to come and enjoy the outside, enjoy the history of the house, learn a bit, but also just stop, slow down and wonder.

Jonathan Thomas (31:55)
And that's what I love watching about these, the modern generation taking on these special places is ⁓ it's a fun type of entrepreneurship to watch, trying to see what works, trying to see what people wanna see and how people wanna enjoy the house because it becomes, these houses have always been economic magnets for the local communities. So it's nice to see them still doing that.

Magnus (32:19)
And I think it's really important that they are still the hub. So we're hosting the Village Fate on the 1st of August where

⁓ We're going to have the old traditional sports days. We're going to have the old egg and spoon race. We're going to have three legged race. We had a traditional Easter trail around the garden, which had games like welly wanying and wheelbarrow racing. So I think being that hub of it, as well as doing we have a village picnic and things like that are really important aspects of keeping these places alive because

without their input and without the input of we've got some amazing volunteers who give up their time to help us here and who will take people through journeys in the history of the family who can tell you every portrait every miniature without these people who've put in their love and care for Coughton we wouldn't be able to give anywhere near as good as experience we hope to give people.

Jonathan Thomas (33:19)
So, Coughton has joined the Historic Houses membership scheme. What does that, which gives members access to hundreds of independent, stately homes and heritage properties across Britain. So what does being part of that network mean for the estate now?

Magnus (33:33)
So for us, it was a very simple network to join. They've been absolutely incredible with the behind the scenes. What till system to use? What do you do about this? What salvage course do you go on? So as someone who's running one of these houses, the network they can put you in touch with it has been incredible. And then it has also opened us up to where we've been nominated for.

Historic House Garden the Year Award this year and everything and it it brings in people who are interested in these historic houses and they're interested in Not being the same. So every house has its own story. Every house has its own tale every house will be run slightly differently because Somebody might be keen gardener. Somebody might be a keen historian as up ⁓

I went to go and see Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire and he's got the largest collection of military uniforms in the world. So each of these houses have their own USP's as it were and it's how we harness those collectively together to take people on these journeys and tell the stories of these wonderful places.

Jonathan Thomas (34:43)
And I love that.

What is Coughton's USP? What are you guys going to focus on ⁓ compared to other stately home attractions as attractions? Is it the Tudor history? Is it the Catholic history? Is it the gardens?

Magnus (34:57)
I think probably a large part of it, I think you fall into three categories. I think the gardens will always draw people back because they're constantly evolving throughout the year. So you can come to the gardens 12 times once a month and you'll see something different in the gardens. But I also think the fact that it's been one family for 600 years with one faith is a really strong, powerful narrative actually.

Jonathan Thomas (35:21)
It really is. And it roots it in the landscape, the culture and the history. You've got like the trifecta there. I, ⁓ so yeah. So I was just going to say when you were listed off all the things you guys are doing, I'm like, how do you guys have the energy to do all those things? I.

Magnus (35:31)
and the grey hairs and the energy, hopefully to drive it forward.

because it's a labour of love. Everything we do, lots of coffee, but it's also we're doing it for our children. And it sounds a really silly...

Jonathan Thomas (35:47)
Lots of coffee, right?

Magnus (35:53)
quibble, but actually having them running around, having them being part of it, them seeing that the hard work we're doing is going places and things like that is really important. And my wife and I work together really well. We delegate, she does the gardens because I'm not allowed near any flowers whatsoever because I'll probably kill them. I'm allowed to use the lawnmower occasionally and things like that. we're very early into this new stage of Coughton's history and we are still finding art.

our feet but we have a wonderful team behind us and we've got a wonderful set of volunteers who are brilliant if I'm entirely honest.

Jonathan Thomas (36:31)
So, thinking of American visitors, and that's why I run the podcast, help spread the word to Americans who are our primary audience, ⁓ why should American Anglophiles put Coughton on their itinerary? What will they get out of there that they wouldn't find at somewhere else? How do get us Americans to come there?

Magnus (36:51)
I think it's important to remember that there's a lot of Throckmortons over in America. So John Throckmorton went over there. So we've got strong roots over there anyway as we speak and the Throckmorton daft deal was developed over in America and everything. ⁓ I think what does Coughton brings

a ⁓ unique modern day approach to running one of these places. You will see either me and I on the welcome hut, you'll see us taking tours, will see us, ⁓ this morning I was pot washing in the kitchen. It's, I think some people come to the UK expecting these houses to be the new Downton Abbey. And when people come and stay with us and we have people who come and have private lunches with us and everything.

We say absolutely, we'll be your castings, we'll be your, we do everything. There is no grandeur here. This is a living and breathing family house. And we've taken a very hands-on approach to it.

Jonathan Thomas (37:54)
So, Coughton sits right in the heart of Shakespeare country. Stratford upon Avon is nearby. The Cotswolds are within easy reach. How do you think it fits into the broader Midlands itinerary for an American visitor? Because for most Americans, the Midlands aren't usually on their default itineraries for Britain. The American geography of Britain is London, Cotswolds, maybe Yorkshire, Scotland, and yeah, and maybe like Cornwall, but.

Magnus (38:17)
Scotland.

Jonathan Thomas (38:23)
They tend to focus on these core areas. So how do you get them to get out of the Cotswolds and come to Warwickshire?

Magnus (38:31)
I would say we're 20 minutes out of the Cotswolds, so we're not far from a lot of the very nice hotels in the Cotswolds and everything like that. ⁓

And actually one of the really exciting things about Coughton is it's not just a house, it's not just a garden. We're having people spending all day here at the moment, exploring the family history, exploring the house, going for a guided tour in the morning, going around the gardens and coming back to the house. So there is a full day's activity to do if you want, you can do it within a few hours. But actually...

what we're finding, and we've only been open a month, so we are still very new to this, so, is that people are coming and enjoying and taking the time to, it's not just a stop off. We're able to entice people and encourage people to spend a bit longer here, so it's becoming a bit more of a destination for people to come. We have the support of a few Americans who already come to us and, ⁓

they've all seemed to fallen in love with the personal side of their trip and everything and to be meeting both Emi and I and ⁓ we had a group of American ladies who came. ⁓

and all they were interested in was it. So not all they were interested in, but they wanted to see what our daughter's bedroom was like and things like that. And it's, it's, we're happy to take people behind the scenes to show them that actually we are a very normal family living here. We've got two children who are the world to us, but we'll take you on our family history and we'll take you on our story. You won't have, you'll probably have more.

historical trips and tours you'll probably have more garden knowledge of it but we will give you an insight into what it is like living at Coughton and a day-to-day a day in the life of Magnus and Imogen at Coughton our spaces the snapshot of what people see

Jonathan Thomas (40:37)
Well, I'm sold, so I'm gonna have to come visit. So what can visitors look forward to this summer? What major events do you have going on or what do you got planned?

Magnus (40:46)
So we've got a summer pack full of different things. We've mentioned all the workshops. We've got the walled garden and the gardens come into their own end of May, early June, where the roses are particularly starting to flower and to come out. And that's always been one of our most special times of year. But then you go through into late July and August and the long herbaceous borders. So we've got a lovely long.

cold hot border going up one side and then a cold water coming down. ⁓ But then we've got Lord Chamberlain's men doing their play Othello on the back lawn. We've got a local theatre production doing some more children's based stuff. We are just opening up the doors at the moment and seeing what people enjoy. But actually the best thing to come and do is enjoy one of the fantastic ice creams we have.

Jonathan Thomas (41:43)
And again, I'm sold. So, well, what a wonderful conversation this has been and what a remarkable place Coughton Court is. Thank you so much for joining us on the Angletopia podcast, Magnus, and for helping introduce your special home to our American listeners. ⁓ Coughton Court is open Wednesday through Sunday, ⁓ 9 to 4.30 PM. And you can find out all the details, including tickets and upcoming events at the website, which we will link to in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe.

like or comment. And if you like the Anglotopia podcast, please consider joining the Friends of Anglotopia Club where you can get early access to new episodes and connect with other enthusiasts about Britain. Join us next time as we continue exploring the people, places and stories that make Britain's cultural heritage so endlessly fascinating to discover. Thank you again, Magnus.

Magnus (42:34)
Thank you very much, Jonathan, and really nice to meet you.