Outbuildings at Charlecote Manor
Charlecote Park (grid reference SP263564) is a grand 16th-century country house, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon in Charlecote near Wellesbourne, about 4 miles (6 km) east of Stratford-upon-Avon and 5.5 miles (9 km) south of Warwick in Warwickshire, England. It has been administered by the National Trust since 1946. It is a Grade I listed building and is open to the public.

History
The Lucy family owned the land since 1247. Charlecote Park was originally built in 1558 by Sir Thomas Lucy, and Queen Elizabeth I stayed in the room that is now the drawing room. Although the general outline of the Elizabethan house remains, nowadays it is in fact mostly Victorian. Successive generations of the Lucy family had modified Charlecote Park over the centuries, but in 1823, George Hammond Lucy (High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1831) inherited the house and set about recreating the house in its original style.

Charlecote Park covers 185 acres (75 ha), backing on to the River Avon. Allegedly, William Shakespeare poached rabbits and deer in the park as a young man and was brought before magistrates as a result.[1]

From 1605 to 1640, the house was organised by Sir Thomas Lucy. He had twelve children with Lady Lucy, who ran the house after he died. She was known for her piety and distributing alms to the poor each Christmas. Her eldest three sons inherited the house in turn, then it fell to her grandson Sir Davenport Lucy.[2]

In the Tudor great hall, the 1680 painting Charlecote Park by Sir Godfrey Kneller is said to be one of the earliest depictions of a black presence in the West Midlands (excluding Roman legionnaires).[3] The painting, of Captain Thomas Lucy, shows a black boy in the background dressed in a blue livery coat and red stockings and wearing a gleaming, metal collar around his neck. The National Trust's Charlecote brochure describes the boy as a &quot;black page boy&quot;. In 1735, a black child called Philip Lucy was baptised at Charlecote. Wikipedia