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It is tempting to imagine the Rectory, which would have formed a kind of B&B for prominent visitors to the Court, humming with gossip. Queen Elizabeth 1st said, ‘I love well of Nonsuch air’ and hunted in the park with her boyfriend, the Earl of Leicester. After he died and his stepson the Earl of Essex replaced him in her affections, Nonsuch was the scene of Essex’s downfall when he burst into Elizabeth’s bedroom without warning, finding her without wig or make-up. Previously, he had kept up the flattering fiction that she was an attractive woman whom he desired. She was conciliatory, fearing that this was a rebellion – but she had literally lost face, and he lost his head.
Later, Nonsuch was a centre of Catholic plotting to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne. The Lumley family (as in the actress Joanna) lived here for years but the Palace decayed until Charles 2nd gave it to Barbara, Lady Castlemaine, a high-maintenance sexy piece, who had it pulled down and sold the stones to pay her gambling debts.
The Old Rectory is said to have more than seven ghosts.
