Netley Abbey
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Netley Abbey was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1239, by Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester from 1205–1238. The abbey was one of a pair, the other being La Clarté-Dieu in Saint-Paterne-Racan, France, which the bishop conceived as a memorial to himself. Des Roches had begun purchasing the lands for Netley's initial endowment about 1236, but he died before the project was finished and the foundation was completed by his executors. According to the Chronicle of Waverley Abbey, the first monks arrived to settle the site on 25 July 1239 from neighbouring Beaulieu Abbey, a year after the bishop's death. The death of the founder before the vital task of collecting the endowment was complete meant that the abbey started its life in a difficult financial situation. It is thought that little building took place on the site until the house was taken under the wing of Henry III who became interested in the abbey in the mid 1240s and eventually assumed the role of patron in 1251.
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[edit] The Abbey buildings
The fruits of royal patronage were soon shown in the erection of a large church (72m long) built in the fashionable French-influenced gothic style pioneered by Henry's masons at Westminster Abbey. The high quality and eleborate nature of the decoration of the church, particularly the mouldings and tracery, indicate a move away from the deliberate austerity of early Cistercian churches towards the grandeur appropriate to a secular cathedral. Construction of the church took many decades and the building was only completely finished by around 1320.
South of the church stood a cloister surrounded by ranges of buildings on three sides, the church forming the fourth. The cloister was the heart of the abbey and it was here that the inhabitants spent most of their time - when not in church - engaged in study and the creation of illuminated manuscripts.
The east range, which was started at the same time as the church, contained on the ground floor the library and sacristy; the chapter house; the parlour (where monks could talk without disturbing the silence of the cloister), the monks' day room and a vaulted hall whose use is unclear. All these rooms were equipped with magnificent vaults and some had grand hooded fireplaces (in defiance of Cistercian doctine). The top floor held the monks' dormitory, a strongroom and the reredorter or latrine, which was flushed by an underground stream running in a tunnel beneath the abbey. The south range consisted of the warming house where the communal fire burned constantly, the buttery, the frater or dining hall projecting south, and the kitchens. The west range at Netley is small and does not run the full length of the west side of the cloister. It contains the original main entrance to the building, and the outer parlour where monks could meet visitors. Currently, these buildings are very badly ruined and it is difficult to say what they were used for. Typically, the ground floor would have been food storage while the upper floor would have been used by the lay brothers, but by the time Netley was founded they were in decline and there may have been few, if any, of them at the abbey.
All the buildings around the cloister were probably finished by the middle of the fourteenth century. There were subsequently few major structural changes during the monastic period aside from the revaulting of the south transept of the church at the end of the fifteenth century. It is likely, however, that there were many internal changes to match rising standards of living during the later Middle Ages that have left no evidence on the surviving remains.
East of the main complex stood a stone building with vaulted chambers on two levels. This is thought to have been the abbot's house, or possibly a guest house. Normally, an infirmary with its own kitchens, chapel and ancillary buildings would also be found here but at Netley it seems to be absent and excavations have not solved the mystery of where Netley's infirmary was.
The monastery would have been surrounded by a walled precinct containing gardens, barns, guesthouses, stables, a farmyard and industrial buildings. Entrance would have been strictly controlled by several gatehouses.
[edit] Crisis and recovery
Henry III added generously to the endowment left by Peter des Roches both in terms of farmland, urban property in Southampton and elsewhere, and various spiritual revenues from churches, with the result that by 1291 taxation returns show that the abbey had a clear revenue of £81, a very comfortable income. However, shortly after this, a period of bad management meant that the abbey accrued substantial debts and soon was in a position of near bankruptcy. In 1328 the government was forced to appoint an administrator, John of Mere, to solve the crisis. Despite forcing the abbot to apply the revenues to debt repayment and selling off many of the estates, he was only partly successful, as is shown by the fact that 10 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 and the abbey managed to ride through its difficulties, but the sale of much of the property meant that income levels never recovered and it settled into what might be best described as genteel poverty.
Despite this, Netley remained a much respected institution by its neighbours until the end of its life as a monastery. It was known neither for scholarship, wealth or particular fervour, but was highly regarded for generosity to travellers and sailors and for the devout lives led by its monks. The abbot was summoned on many occasions to sit in Parliament and surviving reports evidence a peaceful and scandal-free domestic life.
[edit] Dissolution
In 1535 the abbey's income was assessed in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, Henry VIII's great survey of church finances, at £160 gross, £100 net, which meant the following year that it came under the terms of the first Suppression Act, Henry's initial move in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Abbot Thomas Stevens and his seven monks were forced to surrender their house to the king in 1536 and it finally closed in February 1537.
In addition to the monks there were also living in the abbey at the closure 29 servants and officials plus two Franciscan friars who had been sent there by the king, presumably for opposing his religious policies. Of the monks themselves, Abbot Thomas and six of his monks (the other desired to resign and take a job as a secular priest) crossed the Solent to join the abbey of Beaulieu until it itself was dissolved in 1538. Stevens became abbot of Beaulieu before the end and was thus forced to surrender an abbey twice. The monks received pensions after the fall of Beaulieu, while Abbot Thomas ended his days as treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral. He died in 1550.
Following the Dissolution, the king granted the abbey buildings and some of its estates to Sir William Paulet, his Lord Treasurer and subsequently Marquess of Winchester. As soon as he took over, Paulet started the process of turning the abbey into a palace suitable for one of the most important politicians in England. He converted the nave of the church into his great hall and kitchens, the transepts became a series of luxurious apartments for his personal use while the presbytery became a private chapel. The monks' dormitory became the long gallery of the mansion and the latrine block became a series of grand chambers. He demolished the south range and frater and built a new one with a turreted gatehouse to provide the appropriate seigneurial emphasis needed for a classic Tudor courtyard house. He likewise demolished the cloisters to make a central courtyard for his house and placed a large fountain in the centre. The buildings of the precinct were swept away to create formal gardens.
[edit] Later history
Paulet's successors, who included both his own family and others such as William Seymour, 1st Marquess of Hertford, who lived there during the Commonwealth, and the Earl of Huntingdon, inhabited the abbey until the close of the seventeenth century when it came into the hands of Sir Berkeley Lucy, who decided in 1700 to realise the by now unfashionable house for cash from the materials.
He made an agreement with a Southampton builder, Mr Taylor, to demolish 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 fortunately halted. After that the abbey was abandoned and allowed to decay. In the 1760s Mr Thomas Lee Drummer, a country gentleman, purchased the north transept which he removed to his estate of Cranbury Park near Winchester where it can be still be seen as a folly in the gardens. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the abbey, by now roofless and enshrouded in 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 and steps were taken to conserve the ruins. Archaeological excavations directed by Charles Pink took place in 1860. Eventually the abbey ended up in state care and it is now a scheduled ancient monument.
[edit] The Abbey today
The visitor today will find the shell of the church and monastic buildings around the cloister plus the abbot's house. Little of the post-Dissolution mansion remains aside from the south range, foundations and some alterations in red Tudor brick. In most places the abbey stands to close to its original height and three rooms still have their vaults intact. Mediaeval heraldic polychrome tiles found on the site can be seen in the sacristy and Henry III's foundation stone inscribed in Latin "H:di.gra rex ange" ("Henry by the grace of God King of the English") remains in the church. The abbey ruins are set in quiet parkland to the west of the village of Netley. The abbey is maintained by English Heritage, and is open free to visitors all year round.
[edit] Netley in literature and art
It was not long after the abbey had been allowed to fall to ruin that it began to attract the attention of artists and writers. In 1755, the antiquarian Horace Walpole praised the ruins in his letters following a visit with the poet Thomas Gray, claiming they were "In short, not the ruins of Netley, but of Paradise". 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 lead there by the monks. He prefaced his poem with a heartfelt plea for the preservation of the remains.
Keate was followed by other romantic poets including William Sotheby (Ode, Netley Abbey, Midnight, 1790). Sotheby’s view of the abbey was gothic: he peoples the ruins with spectral processions and ghostly Cistercians. Nor was he the only one; in 1795 Richard Warner wrote a potboiler entitled Netley Abbey, a Gothic Story in two volumes, featuring skullduggery at the abbey during the middle ages. Dark deeds before the dissolution also appeared in the section of Richard Harris Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends (1847) covering Netley. This complex satire pokes fun at the mediaeval church and the monks (whom he accuses of having walled up an erring nun in one of the vaults and thereby ensuring God’s revenge upon them) and the tourists that crowded contemporary Netley, while at the same time showing appreciation of the beauty of the ruins.
Netley also has its own opera, Netley Abbey, an Operatic Farce, by William Pearce, which was first shown in 1794 at Covent Garden.
The abbey ruins also attracted the attention of artists. The first surviving depiction of the abbey is by the engravers Samuel & Nathaniel Buck, who specialised in landmarks and great ruins. Their engraving (1733) shows the church of the abbey very much as it is today with the exception of the vaults of the south transept still being present (the picture must be taken with caution, however, as it shows some notable errors, it was clearly done from memory and rough sketches). The abbey was a popular subject for engravers and painters throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most famous artist to paint the ruins was John Constable, whose 1833 painting of the ruins shows them lurking sinisterly among trees.
[edit] Folklore and ghosts
Over the years a number of different legends have grown up around Netley Abbey. It has its share of the tales of gold and jewels hidden by the monks at the Dissolution that are common to many ruined monastic sites in Britain. Sadly, there is unlikely to be any hoard awaiting a finder. As a poor house, the abbey never had much in the way of treasure and what there was, church plate worth £43, was all accounted for and confiscated by the king's commissioners. There is also the usual story of secret passages. Netley does in fact have a mediaeval tunnel running under the site, but it is the main drain of the abbey (a stream flows through it) rather than a secret entrance. This tunnel is the probable inspiration of the story.
A more interesting tale concerns Mr Taylor, the builder contracted to pull down the church. Legend has it that before starting work he was warned in a dream that he would be punished if he committed the sacriliege of damaging the building. He ignored the warning and, as noted above, was killed by the collapse of the west window of the church. Folklore has it that his ghost is sometimes encountered in the ruins, manifesting itself either as a white figure or the sound of falling masonry.
The abbey is alleged to be home to two other ghosts as well. The first is that of a monk, said to be a former abbot who, as the story goes, committed many misdeeds. He is said to appear as a dark figure or a large moving shadow. The second ghost is believed to be that of an old lady; no one knows why she is there but it is said that she can be seen at night floating between the rooms. It is claimed that all three ghosts appear by both day and night.
The story of the nun walled up in a small room recounted in the section in Barham's 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 a taxi driver.
[edit] Bibliography
- Abbeys and Priories in England and Wales, Bryan Little, Batsford 1979
- The Abbeys and Priories of Medieval England, Prof. Colin Platt, Secker & Warburg 1984
- Bare Ruined Choirs, Dom. David Knowles, Cambridge University Press 1959
- The Cistercian Abbeys of Britain, ed David Robinson, Batsford 1998
- A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume II, The Victoria County History 1973
- Netley Abbey, A. Hamilton Thompson, Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1953
- The Pleasure of Ruins, Dame Rose Macaulay, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1953
