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The Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey
The childhood home of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, executed in 1554, was discovered this summer in the remains of a stone foundation in Leicestershire. The finding shines a light on the brief existence of the teenage noblewoman who was declared queen of England but ruled for only nine days.
Archaeologists from the University of Leicester have been working at the Bradgate Park ruin since 2015 to unearth its history. In June 2019 they announced that they had found a series of “stone structures” that lie under the standing brick buildings.
The academics believe that these stone buildings are likely to be the ones Lady Jane Grey would have called home. “While Bradgate House is such an iconic site, very little is known about the standing structure and how it changed over time,” project co-director Richard Thomas, a reader in archaeology at the University of Leicester, said in a statement. “Our evidence suggests that the home Lady Jane Grey would have recognized may have looked very different from what we see today.”
The Grey family lived at Bradgate for centuries. It began as a hunting ground in the early 13th century, enclosed by an earthwork bank and ditch, topped by oak timbers. In 1445 the park passed by marriage to the Grey family, who owned it for the next five centuries.
