Netley Abbey
Virgin Mary and Edward the Confessor | |
Diocese | Diocese of Winchester |
---|---|
People | |
Founder(s) | Peter des Roches and Henry III |
Important associated figures | William Paulet, Abbot Thomas Stevens |
Site | |
Location | Netley, Hampshire, United Kingdom |
Grid reference | SU453090 |
Visible remains | major ruins of church, monastic buildings and post-Dissolution mansion |
Public access | open to the public (English Heritage) |
Netley Abbey is a ruined
In 1536, Netley Abbey was seized by
Foundation
Netley was conceived by the influential
Buildings
Church
The fruits of royal patronage were demonstrated by the construction of a large church (72 metres (236 ft) long), built in the fashionable French-influenced
The church was
Internally, the church was subdivided into several areas. The high altar was against the east wall of the sanctuary, flanked by two smaller altars on the side walls.
Unlike other orders of monks who allowed parishioners and visitors admission to the nave, the Cistercians officially reserved their churches solely for the use of the monastic community. Others had to worship in a separate chapel in the abbey grounds close to the main gate.
The interior of the church was richly decorated. The walls were plastered and painted in white and maroon with geometric patterns and lines designed to give the impression of
Cloister and east range
South of the church stands a cloister surrounded by ranges of buildings on three sides, the church forming the fourth. As is known, the cloister was the heart of the abbey, where the monks spent most of their time when not in church, engaged in study, copying books and the creation of illuminated manuscripts.[15][16] The monks' desks were placed in the north walk of the cloister, and a cupboard for books in current use was carved into the external wall of the south transept.[16]
The east range, which was started at the same time as the church and probably took about 10 years to build,
The parlour lies south, an austere, barrel vaulted room little more than a passageway through the building.[16] Here the monks could talk without disturbing the silence in the cloister, which Cistercian rules insisted on.[18] South of this runs a long vaulted hall with a central row of pillars supporting the roof. This room was much altered over time and probably served several purposes during the lifetime of the abbey. Initially, it may have served as the monks' day room and accommodation for novices,[5][16] but as time went on it may have been converted into the misericord[19] where the monks—initially only the sick, but by the later middle ages the whole convent—could eat meat dishes not normally allowed in the main dining hall.[20]
The monks' dormitory was on the top floor of the east range, a long room with a high pitched roof (the mark of which can still be seen on the transept wall) which ran the length of the building.[21] This was entered by two staircases: the day stair went down into the cloister in the south-east corner; the night stair led into the south transept of the church to allow the monks to get easily from bed to choir at night. Initially the dormitory was an open hall, with the monks' beds placed along the walls, one under each of the small, slit-like windows. During the fourteenth century, when views of the necessity of sleeping in the same space together for the common life changed,[22] the dormitory at Netley would, as at other houses, have been divided into sections with wooden dividers to give every monk his own private area, each leading off a central corridor. The treasury, a tiny vaulted room, was at the north end of the dormitory, presumably located for security at night.[21]
Reredorter and infirmary
Another large building lies crosswise at the south end of the east range. Its lower level consists of a vaulted hall equipped with a grand thirteenth-century hooded fireplace and its own garderobe. It is not clear what this chamber was used for, but it may have been the monastic infirmary—if so, it was a most unusual, perhaps unique, arrangement. Normally in a medieval Cistercian monastery an infirmary with its own kitchens, chapel and ancillary buildings would have been located east of the main buildings around a second, smaller cloister, but at Netley these seem to be absent. So far, excavations have not revealed whether Netley had a separate infirmary complex.[19]
The upper floor of this building was the reredorter or latrine. It is a large room with a door conveniently leading into the monks' dormitory. The stalls were in the south wall and the effluent dropped into an underground stream which runs in a vaulted passage underneath the building.[23]
To the west of the reredorter block was the buttery, a room where the monks' wine (some of it direct from the king's cellars at Southampton)[1] and beer were stored. Excavations in this area have revealed fragmentary remains which may be part of a separate kitchen for the richer diet allowed to the residents of the infirmary.[19]
South range
During the Tudor conversion of the abbey to a private house the south range was extensively rebuilt, and only the north wall of the medieval structure remains, which makes tracing the monastic layout difficult.
The refectory projected south from the centre of the range, as was usual in Cistercian monasteries.
West range
The west range at Netley is small and does not run the full length of the west side of the cloister. It is divided in two by the original main entrance to the abbey, with an outer parlour where the monks could meet visitors. North of this on the ground floor were cellars for food storage, and to the south was the lay brothers' refectory. The upper floor, reached by a stair from the cloister, was the dormitory for the lay brothers. Netley was a late foundation, built at a time when the lay brothers were a declining part of the Cistercian economy, and it is probable that they were fewer in number, hence the small size of the accommodation needed. By the time the west range was completed in the fourteenth century they were rapidly disappearing, and had all but vanished by the end of the century.[27] During the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most Cistercian houses took advantage of the large area of the monastery then left empty and converted the lay brothers' quarters to new uses.[28] At some houses, such as Sawley Abbey in Lancashire, a series of comfortable chambers for the use of monastic officials or guests were built; elsewhere, such as Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire, the west range was turned into a private dwelling of great elegance for the abbot.[29] The ruins of the west range at Netley are too fragmentary to be sure of their purpose in the latter part of the medieval period.[27]
All the buildings around the cloister were finished in the fourteenth century.[30] There were subsequently few major structural changes during the monastic period aside from the re-vaulting of the south transept of the church at the end of the fifteenth century.[31] It is likely, however, that there were many internal changes to match the rising standards of living during the later Middle Ages (as seen at Cleeve Abbey in Somerset) that have left no evidence on the surviving remains.[32]
Precinct
A stone building to the east of the main complex is thought to have been the abbot's house. It contains two levels of vaulted apartments consisting of two halls, bedchambers, a private chapel and service rooms. The upper level was reached by an external staircase, which allowed this floor to be used independently if needed.[33]
The central core of the monastery was surrounded by a precinct containing an outer (public) courtyard and an inner (private) courtyard, gardens, barns, guesthouses for travellers, stables, fishponds, the home farm and industrial buildings. The site was defended by a high bank and moat, part of which remains east of the abbey. Entrance was strictly controlled by an outer and inner
Netley's fresh water was supplied by two
Monastic history
Henry III added to the endowment left by Peter des Roches, donating farmland, urban property in Southampton and elsewhere, and spiritual revenues from churches. By 1291, taxation returns show that the abbey had a clear annual revenue of £81, a comfortable income. However, shortly afterwards a period of bad management resulted in the abbey accruing substantial debts, and it was soon almost bankrupt. In 1328 the government was forced to appoint an administrator, John of Mere, to address the crisis. Despite forcing the abbot to apply revenues to debt repayment and to sell many of the estates, the operation was only partly successful. Ten years later the abbey was again appealing to the king for help with a disastrous financial situation. The monks blamed their problems on the cost of providing hospitality to the many travellers by sea, and the king's sailors who landed at the abbey. The king provided some small grants enabling the abbey to overcome its difficulties but the property sales meant that the abbey's income never recovered and it settled into what has been described as genteel poverty.[1]
Nevertheless, Netley remained a much respected institution by its neighbours until the end of its life as a monastery. It was not known for scholarship, wealth, or particular fervour, but it was highly regarded for its generosity to travellers and sailors, and for the devout lives ("by Raporte of good Religious conversation")[38] led by its monks.[1] The abbot was summoned on many occasions to sit in Parliament with fellow prelates in the House of Lords as one of the Lords Spiritual. Surviving reports suggest the abbey had a peaceful and scandal-free domestic life.[1]
A surviving book
It is not a unique case among English medieval monasteries that almost nothing has survived of what must have been a number of books owned by the house as such or in the keeping of individual monks. These would include at least a small library with biblical texts, spiritual works and perhaps some books on practical subjects, bearing in mind that the management of the abbey plant would have been a considerable challenge. Furthermore, the celebration of the liturgy for a large part of the day and night would necessitate texts for the different participants, who as monks were for the most part not spectators but active participants, some of them with particular roles.
Current scholarship has identified a single book as having belonged to Netley Abbey; it is now conserved as Arundel Ms. 69 in the
Dissolution
In 1535 the abbey's income was assessed in the
A hedde house of Monkes of thordre of Cisteaux, beinge of large buyldinge and situate upon the Ryvage of the Sees. To the Kinge's Subjects and Strangers travelinge the same Sees great Relief and Comforte.[1]
— Sir James Worsley
In addition to the monks, Netley was home to 29 servants and officials of the abbey, plus two
Abbot Thomas Stevens and his seven monks were forced to surrender their house to the king in the summer of 1536.[1] Abbot Thomas Stevens and six of his brethren—the seventh opted to resign and become a secular priest—crossed Southampton Water to join their mother house of Beaulieu. Abbot Stevens was appointed Abbot of Beaulieu in 1536 and administered it for two years until Beaulieu in turn was forced to surrender to the king in April 1538.[44] The monks received pensions after the fall of Beaulieu; Abbot Thomas ended his days as treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral, and died in 1550.[45]
Country house
Following the dissolution of Netley, on 3 August 1536,
His eventual successor
Theophilus Hastings, 7th Earl of Huntingdon, inhabited the abbey until the close of the seventeenth century.[47][51]
Romantic ruin
Around 1700, Netley Abbey came into the hands of Sir Berkeley Lucy (also spelled Sir "Bartlet"), who decided in 1704 to demolish the by now unfashionable house in order to sell the materials. Sir Berkeley made an agreement with a Southampton builder, Mr Walter Taylor,[51][52] to take down the former church. However, during the course of the demolition, the contractor was killed by the fall of tracery from the west window of the church and the scheme was halted.[52][53]
The abbey was subsequently abandoned and allowed to decay. In the 1760s Thomas Dummer, who owned estates in the area, moved the north transept to his estate at Cranbury Park near Winchester where it can be still be seen as a folly in the gardens of the house (at 51°00′08″N 01°21′49″W / 51.00222°N 1.36361°W).[51][54]
By the second half of the eighteenth century, the abbey, by then partially roofless and overgrown with trees and ivy, had become a famous ruin that attracted the attention of artists, dramatists and poets. In the nineteenth century, Netley became a popular tourist attraction (the novelist Jane Austen was among those who visited)[55] and steps were taken to conserve the ruins. Archaeological excavations directed by Charles Pink and Reverend Edmund Kell took place in 1860.[56][57][58] During the same period the owners decided to remove many of the Tudor additions to the building to create a more medieval feel to the site, resulting in the loss of much evidence of the abbey's post-Dissolution story.[55]
In 1922, the abbey was passed into state care by the then owner, Tankerville Chamberlayne, one time Member of Parliament (MP) for Southampton.[59] Conservation and archaeological work on the abbey has continued.[58]
In literature and art
Soon after the abbey had been allowed to fall into ruin, it began to attract the attention of artists and writers, and was a popular subject throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1755, the antiquarian Horace Walpole praised the ruins in his letters following a visit with the poet Thomas Gray,[60] claiming they were "In short, not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise".[61] In 1764, George Keate wrote The Ruins of Netley Abbey, A poem, which showed a romantic appreciation of the ruins and evoked sympathy for the life formerly led there by the monks. He prefaced his poem with a heartfelt plea for the preservation of the remains.[53]
Keate was followed by other romantic poets including
Netley Abbey, an Operatic Farce, by William Pearce, was first performed in 1794 at Covent Garden. The set of the first production featured an elaborate mockup of the abbey ruins seen in the moonlight.[63]
The earliest surviving depiction of the abbey is by the engravers Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, who specialised in landmarks and great ruins.[65] Their engraving (1733) shows the church of the abbey much as it is today, with the exception of the high vault of the south transept still present. The picture has notable errors and was clearly done from memory and rough sketches. The most famous artist to paint the ruins was John Constable, whose 1833 painting of the west end of the church shows it among trees.[66]
Present day
Condition
The visitor today will find the shell of the church and monastic buildings around the cloister plus the
Events
During the summer months the abbey is occasionally host to events such as open-air
on 25 June 2011.2018 closure
Netley Abbey was closed to the public in June 2018 due to safety concerns. English Heritage has taken the decision after scaffolding set up in the nave for conservation work was found to "fall far short" of expected standards.[71]
Local legends
Walter Taylor
Over the years several legends have grown up around the abbey, the best attested of which is that of Walter Taylor, the builder contracted to demolish the church. Legend has it that before starting the work he was warned in a dream that he would be punished if he committed sacrilege by damaging the building. The story is recounted by the eighteenth-century
The earl (sic), it is said, made a contract with a Mr. Walter Taylor, a builder of Southampton, for the complete demolition of the Abbey; it being intended by Taylor to employ the materials in erecting a town house at Newport and other buildings. After making this agreement, however, Taylor dreamed that, as he was pulling down a particular window, one of the stones forming the arch fell upon him, and killed him. His dream impressed him so forcibly that he mentioned the circumstance to a friend, who is said to have been the father of the well-known Dr. Isaac Watts, and in some perplexity asked his advice. His friend thought it would be the safest course for him to have nothing to do with the affair, respecting which he had been so alarmingly forewarned, and endeavoured to persuade him to desist from his intention. Taylor, however, at last decided upon paying no attention to his dream, and accordingly began his operations for the pulling down of the building; in which he had not proceeded far, when, as he was assisting at the work, the arch of one of the windows, but not the one he had dreamed of (which was the east window still standing), fell upon his head and fractured his skull. It was thought at first that the wound would not prove mortal; but it was aggravated through the unskilfulness of the surgeon, and the man died.
— Browne Walters[52]
Blind Peter
Another local legend states that during the Dissolution of the Monasteries the abbey's treasure was hidden down a secret tunnel with a lone monk to guard it. After many years of searching a treasure hunter called Slown is said to have entered an underground passage he had discovered only to return a few moments later screaming, "In the name of God, block it up," before dropping dead.[72]
The walled up nun
The story of the nun walled up in a small room recounted in Richard Barham's The Ingoldsby Legends was a creation of the author and has no basis in fact or genuine folklore, as the author himself admits with a smile in his notes to the poem, attributing his story to one James Harrison:
a youthful but intelligent cab driver of Southampton, who "well remembers to have heard his grandmother say that 'Somebody told her so'."
— Richard Harris Barham[64]
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Page & Doubleday 1973, pp. 146–149.
- ^ Bullar, John; Keate, George (1 January 1818). A companion in a visit to Netley abbey [by J. Bullar]. To which is annexed, Netley abbey; an elegy: by G. Keate. p. 12.
- ^ a b Thompson 1953, p. 3.
- ^ a b Robinson et al. 1998, p. 152
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Robinson et al. 1998, p. 153
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thompson 1953, pp. 5–11.
- ^ Tobin 1995, pp. 88.
- ^ a b Tobin 1995, pp. 93.
- ^ Tobin 1995, pp. 134.
- ^ Little 1979, pp. 26.
- ^ Robinson et al. 1998, p. 61.
- ^ a b Kell 1863, pp. 71
- ^ a b c Kell 1863, pp. 72
- ^ Kell 1863, pp. 80
- ^ Little 1979, pp. 39.
- ^ a b c d e f g Thompson 1953, pp. 12–13.
- ^ a b c Tobin 1995, pp. 102, 110.
- ^ Tobin 1995, pp. 110.
- ^ a b c d Thompson 1953, p. 16.
- ^ Platt 1984, p. 169.
- ^ a b Thompson 1953, p. 14.
- ^ Platt 1984, pp. 166–167.
- ^ Thompson 1953, p. 15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Thompson 1953, p. 18.
- ^ Gilyard-Beer 1978, p. 52.
- ^ Tobin 1995, pp. 116.
- ^ a b c Thompson 1953, p. 19.
- ^ Tobin 1995, pp. 121.
- ^ Platt 1984, pp. 155–157.
- ^ Thompson 1953, p. 20.
- ^ Thompson 1953, p. 8.
- ^ Platt 1984, pp. 158–166.
- ^ Thompson 1953, p. 21.
- ^ Little 1979, pp. 41.
- ^ Netley Abbey, National Monuments Register, English Heritage Retrieved on 15 July 2008.
- ^ Kell 1863, pp. 88
- ^ Scheduled Monuments in Southampton (PDF), Southampton City Council, archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2009. Retrieved on 15 July 2008.
- ^ "Conversation" in the sense of the Latin term "conversatio" meant general behaviour and lifestyle.
- ^ cf. http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/e/mlgb/book/4015/ Accessed 28 September 2017.
- ^ David J. Corner, The Gesta regis Henrici Secundi and Chronica of Roger, Parson of Howden, in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 56 (1983) 126–144; David J. Corner, The Earliest Surviving Manuscripts of Roger of Howden's Chronica, in The English Historical Review 98 (1983) 297–310.
- ^ Frank Barlow, Roger of Howden, in The English Historical Review 65 (1950) 352–360.
- ^ Gasquet 1908, pp. 147
- ^ Knowles 1959, pp. 91–95.
- ^ Page & Doubleday 1973, pp. 140–146.
- ^ Horn 1973, pp. 12–13.
- ^ a b Thompson 1953, p. 4.
- ^ a b Macaulay 1953, p. 339.
- ^ Thompson 1987, p. 125.
- ^ Called "Thomas" in VCH Hants, Vol.3
- ^ Victoria County History, Vol.3: Hampshire, ed. William Page, London, 1908, pp. 472–478: Parishes: Hound with Netley[1]
- ^ a b c Thompson 1953, p. 22.
- ^ a b c Valentine 1891, pp. 75–77.
- ^ a b Macaulay 1953, p. 340.
- ^ Ford, Michael. "History of Cranbury Park, Hampshire". www.britannia.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2010. Retrieved 18 September 2009.
- ^ a b The Romance of Netley, English Heritage. Retrieved on 4 July 2008
- ^ Kell 1863, pp. 65
- ^ Kell 1863, pp. 66
- ^ a b Netley Abbey Investigation History, English Heritage, archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved on 31 July 2008
- ISBN 0-86146-041-3
- ^ Thompson 1953, p. 24.
- ^ Macaulay 1953, p. 338.
- ^ Macaulay 1953, p. 341.
- ^ a b Thompson 1953, p. 25.
- ^ a b Barham 1837–1845, pp. 210–213.
- ^ Thompson 1953, pp. 14–15.
- ^ Abbey, ca. 1833. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. Retrieved on 18 January 2014
- ^ Netley Abbey, English Heritage. Retrieved on 29 July 2008.
- ^ Department of the Environment 1978, p. 102.
- ^ Southampton University: Viewpoint Arts Page – Issue 376 Archived 2012-01-18 at the Wayback Machine "Summer Arts Browse: The Merchant of Venice continues in the open air at Netley Abbey until 21 June"
- ^ "Angela Ward-Brown Wedding Photography Blog – outdoor flashmob wedding". Archived from the original on 11 July 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
- ^ "Netley Abbey ruins shut amid safety concerns". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 August 2018.
- ISBN 978-1848682573.
Bibliography
- Barham, Richard Harris (1837–1845), The Ingoldsby Legends, London: Richard Bentley
- Brown, Jim (2004), The Illustrated History of Southampton's Suburbs, Breedon Books Publishing Co Ltd, ISBN 1-85983-405-1
- Department of the Environment (1978), Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings: List of ancient monuments in England Volume II Southern England, Department of the Environment
- Gasquet, Francis, Cardinal (1908), The Greater Abbeys of England, Chatto & Windus, )
- Gilyard-Beer, R. (1978), Fountains Abbey, The National Trust & English Heritage, ISBN 1-85074-124-7
- Guillaume, George (1848), Architectural views and details of Netley Abbey, partly shown as it originally existed, with brief historical associations of that ancient ruin, and description of late discoveries, Forbes & Knibb, OCLC 7881011
- Hare, John (1993), Netley Abbey: Monastery, Mansion and Ruin, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, Volume IL, Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, OCLC 183247983
- Horn, Joyce (1973), Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857: Volume VI: Salisbury Diocese, University of London, Institute of Historical Research, ISBN 0-901179-91-4
- Kell, The Reverend Edmund (1863), Netley Abbey, with an Account of Recent Excavations and Discoveries, in Collectanea Archaeologica: communications made to the British Archaeological Association Volume II Part i, Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, OCLC 64227662
- Knowles, Dom. David (1959), Bare Ruined Choirs, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-09930-7
- Little, Bryan (1979), Abbeys and Priories in England and Wales, Batsford Ltd, ISBN 0-7134-1712-9
- Macaulay, Dame Rose (1953), The Pleasure of Ruins, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0-500-27353-7
- Page, William; Doubleday, H. Arthur (1973), Houses of Cistercian monks: Abbey of Netley, A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume II, The Victoria County History, ISBN 0-7129-0592-8
- Platt, Professor Colin (1984), The Abbeys and Priories of Medieval England, Secker & Warburg, ISBN 0-436-37557-5
- Robinson, David; Burton, Janet; Coldstream, Nicola; Coppack, Glyn; Fawcett, Richard (1998), The Cistercian Abbeys of Britain, Batsford Ltd, ISBN 978-0-7134-8392-5
- Tobin, Stephen (1995), The Cistercians, Monks and Monasteries of Europe, The Herbert Press, ISBN 1-871569-80-X
- Thompson, A. Hamilton (1953), Netley Abbey, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, ISBN 0-11-670020-3
- Thompson, M. W. (1987), The Decline of the Castle, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-32194-8
- Valentine, Laura (1891), Picturesque England, its landmarks and historic haunts as described in lay and legend, F. Warne and Co., OCLC 13724696
External links
- Official English Heritage site about the abbey with history, images, travel details, opening times and an audio guided tour
- Netley on the Sheffield University Cistercian abbeys site
- Southampton City Council Historic Environment Record 2008, notes the Netley aqueducts
- Detailed historical record for Netley Abbey
- Works about Netley Abbey at Internet Archive (scanned books)
- Image of the folly built from the ruins of the north transept on the Cranbury Park estate
- Some information regarding the abbey's ghosts
- Online version of Laura Valentine's Picturesque England with information about the abbey and engravings