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Holbeche House

Near Kingswinford, Staffordshire

The plotters' last stand, where their own gunpowder blew up in their faces.

After the plot failed, the fugitives fled north and took shelter at Holbeche House. Their gunpowder had got wet, so they spread it before the fire to dry.

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When
8 November 1605
Where
52.5050, -2.1680
Group
Plots

Visiting

Now a private nursing home; view from the road only.

Cover of Guy Fawkes: Traitor or Faithful? by Cale Mills
From the book

Guy Fawkes: Traitor or Faithful?

By 7 November they had reached Holbeche House, on the borders of Staffordshire, with a small band of exhausted men. They tried to dry their gunpowder in front of a fire. A spark caught it, and it exploded, burning several of them badly.

This book asks one question and keeps asking it: was Guy Fawkes faithful, or a traitor? Most people think they already know. The answer has been handed down for four hundred years, with a bonfire and a rhyme, and it is rarely examined. From the boy from Stonegate in York to the cellar, the Tower and Westminster Hall, every chapter ends with a ledger of what it adds in his favour and what it adds against him. By the last page you may find that the answer you arrived with is not the one you leave with.

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