IT'S pitch black and I am bent double, squeezed into a tiny cubbyhole with only my senses for company. I flinch as I hear the heavy boots thumping across the floorboards above. There's a scraping sound, as if heavy furniture is being dragged across the floor. The raised voices become louder, the footsteps nearer, there's a flurry of urgency then the sickening sound of metal against metal; my mind imagines the worst. Is it a sword being drawn from its sheath?

Welcome to the world of secrets and spies - the new £1 million exhibition at the Bar Convent, York, which through exciting multi-media displays tells the story of Catholic defiance in the reformation.

Visitors are met by a soundtrack of "shushing" and whispers as they read the scene-setting panels. Elizabeth I is on the throne and practising the Catholic faith has been banned. Moreover, people who do not regularly attend the Anglican church face interrogation, torture, imprisonment and even death.

Peer through the over-sized keyholes in the wall to see the fate of some of these unfortunates: there's a man being hung, drawn and quartered, another being burned alive.

Being Catholic in the 16th and 17th centuries was fraught with danger. In 1586 in York, Margaret Clitherow paid the ultimate price for harbouring Roman Catholic priests in a secret room at her home on Shambles. Refusing to plead, she was tortured on Ouse Bridge - her body placed on a sharp rock, a door from her own house placed on top of her, then loaded down with heavy stones until she was crushed to death.

Priest holes - small spaces or rooms where Catholic clergy could hide from the authorities - were not uncommon, often purposefully built by sympathisers in their own homes. The Bar Convent exhibition has a drawing of a large house, showing three such priest holes. Underneath is a replica one - where supple visitors can squeeze themselves into, activating an audio recording of what the priest might have heard. It's the sound of a house being turned over in the search for clandestine clergy, finishing with that blood-chilling sound of a sword being drawn.

 

It's against this historical background that the story of Mary Ward and her followers is told - up on the second floor of the exhibition.

Mary Ward is the Yorkshire nun who wouldn't take no for an answer. She so believed that girls were entitled to an education - and that nuns like herself should be able to work outside of their convents - that she marched to Rome on foot to persuade the papal powers that be. Born in Ripon, she died in York and is buried at Osbaldwick.

One of her early students was Frances Bedingfeld, founder of the Bar Convent, and champion of girls' education. An engaging short film tells the story of the Bar Convent, and the bravery of the nuns who made it a haven for Catholic education.

Mother Frances took on the alias of Mrs Long when she moved into the building just beyond Micklegate Bar in 1686, turning it into a secret boarding school for the daughters of respected Catholic families.

A century later, Mother Ann Aspinal took over, effectively rebuilding the convent and giving it a new Georgian facade. Catholics were still persecuted, so ingeniously she installed a chapel in the heart of the building, hiding its tell-tale domed roof behind a slate one so it was invisible from the outside. The chapel also had eight exits and a priest hole.

Visitors to the chapel today will find a light, airy room, perfect for prayer or contemplation. It's almost impossible to imagine the fear and intimidation worshippers endured two centuries previously.

The new exhibition is just part of a £2 million refurbishment at the Bar Convent, which is the oldest surviving Roman Catholic convent in England - eight nuns still live there, including one in her 20s.

But the site is more than a convent - it is also a B&B, with a cafe and conference facilities and £1 million has been spend upgrading those.

York Press:

TV's Alex Polizzi, from The Hotel Inspector, helped with the guest room redesign at The Bar Covent

Some guest rooms have been brought into the 21st century with a boutique hotel flourish - pretty bed linens, flat-screen TVs and ensuite shower rooms with mosaic tiling and mini toiletry sets. Alex Polizzi, from Channel 5's The Hotel Inspector, helped with the guest room redesign and officially opened the new development. She has connections to the convent - her head teacher at school was Sister Frances Orchard, now the chairman of the Bar Convent trustees.

Sister Ann Stafford is the current Mother Superior and welcomes the £2 million upgrade which was funded through donations, saying it helps to preserve the building as a "living history".

She said: "This is not a museum - this continues to be a living place."

And she said the bravery of women such as Mary Ward and Frances Bedingfeld was worth remembering. "It was illegal to be Catholic and the early nuns had to be very careful. They worked in secret. They were kept in prison and raided, but they had this amazing faith that this is what they should be doing.

"Mary Ward was a free spirit. She was a hugely courageous person who wasn't going to be pushed around by anybody.

"She was a woman ahead of her time and a real inspiration for today's world."

Find out more at bar-convent.org.uk