Ingatestone Hall is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Essex, England. It is located outside the village of Ingatestone, approximately south west of Chelmsford and north east of London. The house was built by Sir William Petre, and his descendants (the Barons Petre) live in the house to this day. Part of the house is leased out as offices while the current Lord Petre's son and heir apparent lives in a private wing with his family. The Hall formerly housed Tudor monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth I. The hall is open to the public on selected afternoons between Easter and September. History William Petre bought Ingatestone manor soon after the Dissolution of the Monasteries for some £850 and commissioned the building of the house. In June 1561, Queen Elizabeth I spent several nights at Ingatestone Hall on her royal progress, where she held court. The Petre family laid on a lavish welcome, procuring food and drink and decorating the house. In November 1564, Lady Katherine Gray was transferred to the charge of Sir William Petre. For two years she was in his custody, and resided at Ingatestone Hall; where she was then removed to the care of Sir John Wentworth (a kinsman of Petre's first wife) at Gosfield Hall. The Petre family were recusants, remaining loyal to the Roman Catholic Church after the English Reformation had turned the Kingdom of England into a Protestant country. Statutes were passed prohibiting Catholic worship in England, the Book of Common Prayer was established as the official liturgy of the Church of England, and practising Catholics faced severe punishments. Like many noble Catholic families, the Petres worshipped in secret, holding clandestine Catholic Mass in the private family chapel at Ingatestone Hall. The first Baron Petre, Sir John Petre, befriended the composer William Byrd, also a Catholic. In 1589–90, Byrd spent Christmas with the family at Ingatestone along with John Petre's half sister Dorothy Petre and her husband Nicholas Wadham later co-founders of Wadham College, Oxford and in 1593 Byrd took up residence in the neighbouring village of Stondon Massey. Byrd supported the Petre family's covert Catholic worship by composing a comprehensive repertory of choral music to be sung in the private chapels at Ingatestone and nearby Thorndon Hall, the other Petre family property. The compositions included two sets of motets called Gradualia (1605 and 1607) and a set of three Mass settings,