Tracing your house’s history

Click the link to learn more about my unique online course that guides you in tracing the secret history of your home  

Uncover the secret history of your home

Tracing the history of your house isn’t just about the physical bricks and mortar building. Or, in many cases, flint, or stone, or wattle and daub or timber framed structure.

It’s also about the land your house is on…

As an island nation, we have been relatively lucky that war has left little trace on the landscape of our country. 

Of course, throughout time, there has been battles fought on our soil. Some of which were very bloody – the war between Stephen and Matilda, the War of the Roses, the Civil Wars of the 1640s…. 

However, we haven’t had the wide-scale destruction as seen elsewhere. For example, as a consequence of two world wars, European countries such as Belgium, France and Germany saw wide-scale annihilation. 

Apart from war and battles, the next biggest visible scar on England’s landscape today is that of Henry VIII’s Reformation.

The English Reformation…

Once the Tudor king decided to rid himself of the pope’s power in England, religious houses were forcible closed all over the country. 

And if Henry VIII’s destruction was not enough, then his son, the Protestant boy-king Edward VI, followed through his father’s policies in the 1540s by wiping out any remaining religious houses. 

Henry VIII’s destruction, of what was arguably one of the first social care and welfare systems in England, is all too apparent at Dunwich (Suffolk) within the ruins of Greyfriars. 

Greyfriars, Dunwich, Suffolk

Until the Friary was seized by the Bishop of Dover in 1538, it had been a very successful Franciscan monastery from the time of its establishment in the 1250s. 

Its size and grandeur can only be imagined as you wander through its ruins. 

Where once monks tended the land and went about their daily business, now there are only animals grazing and munching within the Friary’s ruins.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

The destruction and looting of the monasteries took place all over the English countryside…

Today, all over the English countryside, there are remnants of former great monastic buildings. Wiped out by the actions of a greedy and too powerful king.

One extremely powerful and wealthy monastery was at Bury St Edmunds – the abbey of St Edmundsbury.

The abbey was famed in Norman and Medieval times for holding the relics of the martyred Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia, Edmund the Martyr (also known as Saint Edmund). 

Attacking Danes murdered the king in 869 and in 903 his remains were brought to what was then a tiny religious community in the small town known as Beodericsworth. 

From that time onwards, the religious community grew in wealth and prosperity, resulting in the foundation of the abbey in 1020. It became one of the richest and most powerful Benedictine abbeys within England. 

A shrine was built to St Edmund during the 11th century and this developed into an extraordinarily popular holy place for pilgrims to visit. Pilgrimages to holy places within England was a common pursuit for the devout of the middle ages prior to the Reformation sweeping away such journeys.

The abbey was also influential with political events. In 1214, during the reign of King John, dissatisfied earls and barons gathered at the abbey to discuss their criticisms of the king. 

The following year the barons notoriously forced the king to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede.

The abbey’s vast wealth and fortunes ended in 1539 when St Edmundsbury abbey surrendered to the king. 

The great abbey was no more and over the centuries fell into decay. 

No doubt material from this once magnificent abbey was used as building matter for surrounding houses.

Today, the abbey’s former fortunes can still be determined by the vast scale of its ruins.

Wandering around in half-light can be an unnerving experience. If only the walls could talk, what tales would they tell? No doubt stories of Norman monks and abbots, medieval pilgrims, discontented knights and barons, rioting townsfolk, and the abbey’s final days during its death-throes of this once great institution…..

There is a unique postscript to the fortunes of the abbey… Archaeologists believe that St Edmund’s remains are still buried within the abbey’s gardens. 

If a medieval king can be found in a car park in Leicester, then will an Anglo-Saxon king be discovered under tennis courts in Bury St Edmunds?

The closing of the Monasteries

All over the English & Welsh countryside, today we can see the ruins of once great and magnificent religious houses. For example, my childhood favorite haunt, Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire (shut in 1536); and Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire (closed in 1539)

Just a few of the monasteries whose ruins are haunting scars on the countryside. Every single county within England or Wales had at least one medieval monastic building. Some counties had several hundred.

All destroyed by a power-crazed king. 

Incidentally, as most people know, Henry VIII was a despotic king who shut the monasteries and kicked out the pope from being the head of the English church. But did you know Henry died a Catholic king? He was never ever Protestant. 

If you had lived during that troubled time and suggested to the wrong person that the king was a Protestant – you would be burnt at the stake for High Treason.

Moreover, by the late 1530s, Henry VIII (or more likely his side-kick, Thomas Cromwell) was also gunning to seize the wealth of parish churches (some were extremely wealthy). Henry didn’t succeed… Cromwell got too big for his boots and was executed in 1540 – before the wealth of parish churches could be seized. Henry didn’t carry out that task. 

But where he failed, his son, Edward VI, succeeded. Edward – despite being a boy-king – was even more despotic and fanatical then his father.

I digress. You see that’s the problem with Tudor history. It’s so interesting that I always get side-tracked…

Back to the monasteries.

Walden Abbey, Essex

Not all former monastic buildings are in ruins today. After they were forcibly closed, and the monks ejected from their former homes, Henry VIII had the habit of selling the buildings to his mates.

One such former monastery was the majestic abbey in the north Essex town of Walden (now Saffron Walden).

In 1538, Henry VIII seized Walden Abbey and gave it to his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley (c.1488-1544). 

Audley converted the abbey into his own extensive residence. When he died, the house passed down to his descendants through his daughter’s line to the Howards. 

Yep that famous Tudor family – the Earls of Suffolk. 

Over the next 500 years, the house changed ownership several times – from kings of England to the nobility. It was built, rebuilt, remodeled and then redone yet again. (You’ll have to read my book “Saffron Walden and Around Through Time” to see who owned it and when! And who remodeled it! )

Suffice to say, that today it is a magnificent building – the whole site is a World Heritage Site. 

But it started life as Walden Abbey, a religious house for medieval monks.

Check back next week for part 2!

The story of your house…

Are there any houses or road names or areas near you that reflect the fact that there was once a monastic building where you live?

If you are fascinated about the history of your home, then you’ll be interested in my new online course

🏡 If Walls Could Talk…
Uncover the secret history of your home🏡

Enrolment is now open…

Course commences on Monday 30 September 2019

I hope you’ll join me and take part in this fascinating course. Learn how you can trace the history of your home.

As this is the first pilot version of my course, it’ll be offered at a very special low price that will not be repeated.

Click the link to learn more https://essexvoicespast.thinkific.com/courses/house2019

Post created: September 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019