The name “Hutton John” came into use c.1250, when the original moated homestead was enlarged by John.. It was the home of the Huttons, probably a younger branch of the 1st. barons of Greystoke, descended from Ivo, the 3rd. baron.
The “pele” tower was built c.1353 as a defence against the Scots. Enlarged and altered over the next 500 years, the manor came to the Hudlestons by the marriage in 1564, of Marie Hutton, a god-daughter of Princess, later Queen Mary Tudor, to Andrew Hudleston, one of Queen Mary’s gentlemen, and son of Sir John Hudleston of Millom and Southam (d. 1548). Marie Hutton’s brother Thomas, the Lord of the manor, was unmarried and in prison for non payment of religious fines, for several years. Andrew’s son Joseph, paid Thomas £11.13s.4d. for the transfer in 1615.
Firm Catholics and Royalists, the Hudlestons produced several RC priests, who lived secretly in the North of England, having been educated illegally in France and Spain. Father John Dionysius Hudleston, son of Joseph, hid Charles 2nd. after the battle of Worcester 1651, when acting as chaplain and tutor at Moseley Hall, Staffordshire. He later became a chaplain to Charles’s Queen, Catherine of Braganza, and received the dying King into the Catholic Church in 1685.
The 17th.c. wing , built by Andrew Hudleston, brother of Father John, shows many catholic emblems including the Cross of Constantine and the Sacred Heart. His son, another Andrew, turned Protestant , supporting William of Orange in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, when he usurped the throne from James 2nd
Hutton John continued as the home of the Hudlestons till the 1970’s.
There are some memorials and hatchments (armorial shields used at funerals) in Greystoke Church , near Penrith, which was the family church, and where many Hudlestons are buried, but, as one 18th.c. ancestor said “Hudlestons require no monuments either in this world or the next” !