Lyddington Bede House

Rather grey morning and a 30 mile drive but managed to find Bernadette a morning coffee in a pub that could have been a film set. Quaint with a Capital Q.

Bede House was established in the old palace of the Bishop of Lincoln after the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII.
It was for paupers and you got in on the word of the Earl of Exeter and you had to be “free from lunacy, leprosy or the French Pox.” So entry was rather exclusive.
There were Bedesmen here until the ‘30s. Everyone had a little bedsit and it if not luxurious , better than dying in the hedgerows I suppose.

Not quite your modern assisted accommodation but operated for a couple of hundred years and sure beat the workhouse.

The stairs are most definitely for the infirm or leporas.Read more