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  

https://essexvoicespast.thinkific.com/courses/Spring-2020-House

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…Including former monastic land

The other day, we looked at several monasteries that were forcibly closed by Henry VIII in the 1530s. We also looked at how the Reformation was one of the largest visible attacks on the English landscape. Scars that are still visible today. Some scars more subtle then others…

All over England and Wales are remnants of great monastic buildings. Essex is no exception, with immense religious houses that were dissolved by the king’s men in the 1530s, still present today.

Beeleigh Abbey, Maldon, Essex

Here is another former medieval monastery, today a private residential house – Beeleigh Abbey in Maldon.

In 1536, the abbey was valued as having a yearly value of £196 6s. 5d – a substantial sum for the time. This was a reasonably wealthy Abbey – maybe not as rich and powerful as great abbeys elsewhere – such as the majestic (and far too powerful) abbey at Bury St Edmunds.

But valuable, nonetheless.

When Beeleigh Abbey was closed in the 1530s, the Abbot was pensioned off at the yearly rate of £18 (approximately £8,000 in today’s money).

Remember, Henry didn’t have to pay pensions – he forcefully seized the monasteries and personally decided if its heads received a pension. Not all did. The Abbot at Beeleigh Abbey was lucky…

After the abbey was closed, on 6 June 1536, an inventory was taken of the contents of Beeleigh Abbey. There were

📜tapestries and other articles of furniture in the different chambers (the great chamber, the children’s chamber, the dining chamber). [The question here is – what’s a children’s bedroom doing in an abbey supposedly solely inhabited by male monks!!!]

📜beds and bedding;

📜malt and implements in the brewhouse;

📜a table of alabaster at the high altar (valued at 13s. 4d.), with altar-cloths, mass-books, etc.,

📜ornaments of the Lady chapel (including a pair of organs at 100s.), the Jesus chapel, the rood chapel, the chapel of St. Katharine and the vestry;

📜articles in the kitchen, buttery and infirmary;

📜cattle;

📜with some plate remaining in the hands of the commissioners. [ie the king’s men nicked some of the abbey’s gold and silver before it was properly recorded!!!!]

📜The goods were valued at £74 18s. 10d., cattle worth £31 15s. and corn worth £14 3s. 8d.

📜The debts due to the house amounted to £32 11s. 2d., and those due by it £121 18s. 4d.,

📜There were 129¾ ounces of plate [ie gold and silver], valued at £23 16s. 6d.

(Inventory above from “House of Premonstratensian Canons: Abbey of Beeleigh by Maldon”, Victoria County Histories, 1907)

After it was shut in 1536 and its Abbot pensioned off at £18 per year, Beeleigh Abbey was granted to Henry’s friend, Sir John Gates, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir John was a very active supporter of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Henry VIII. Being granted Beeleigh Abbey was his reward.

However, the Tudor period were troubled times – back the wrong person and it was literally “off with your head”.

In 1553, after the death of Henry’s son and successor, Edward VI, Sir John backed the wrong side. He was part of the attempt to place the ill-fated Tudor pawn, Lady Jane Grey, onto the English throne instead of Henry’s Catholic daughter, Mary.

His reward for this doomed and disastrous conspiracy was to misplace his head on Tower Hill in August 1553.

Being granted Beeleigh Abbey by Henry VIII certainly didn’t bring Sir John good fortune!

After the Tudors, the former abbey passed through the hands of many owners. Most famously, the ownership by the Foyle family – the renowned booksellers. The story of its role as the home of the Foyles is well-documented.

However, it is its past as an religious abbey that has always interested me and the role that this, and other monasteries, played in medieval and Tudor England.

Beeleigh Abbey’s tunnels…

Incidentally, there has long been a rumour that there was/is a network of underground tunnels that run from Beeleigh Abbey through to All Saints Church in Maldon. And that when the Abbey was forcefully closed in the 1530s, the monks escaped through this network of tunnels to All Saints church.

I don’t doubt for one moment that this network of tunnels did once exist – and are probably still there, deep underground. However, I strongly argue that not a single monk used these tunnels to escape to All Saints…

I can assert this for several reasons.

Firstly, the Abbot was granted a pension. If his monks had rebelled and fled, then the Abbot would not have been granted this pension.

Henry did not take kindly to trouble-makers. If you were lucky, you ended up on Tower Hill – if unlucky then the fate of either being burnt at the stake or being hanged drawn and quartered awaited you – monks included.

Rebelling fleeing monks and an abbot being granted a yearly substantial pension simply does not add up.

Secondly, there’s no known uprising when Henry shut the monasteries in Essex. There was certainly trouble in the north of the country – but not in Essex.

But, for me, more conclusively that the monks didn’t flee to All Saints is that the vicar was most certainly NOT sympathetic to the Catholic cause.

The vicar of All Saints church at the time Beeleigh Abbey was closed was William Walton, a man who was also the vicar of St Mary’s in Great Dunmow (in those days, men could – and were – vicars of two or more parishes).

William Walton was a very early Protestant – in the days when it was dangerous to openly declare yourself as such. Walton associated with many other early Protestant men such as Dr John Bale – one of the last Priors of Maldon’s Carmelite Monastery.

Despite previously being a devout Catholic monk and Prior, Dr Bale became a staunch Protestant. He was so Protestant that in 1540 he performed a very inflammatory anti-Catholic play in the ruins of the Carmelite Friary in Maldon – watched (and partially financed) by the vicar of All Saints, William Walton.

News of Dr Bale’s activities and his plays quickly reached the ears of the king, and Bale fled abroad in 1540 to evade Henry’s vengeful wrath.

The vicar of All Saints in Maldon, William Walton was a loyal friend of Dr John Bale. Thus, he had firm Protestant tendencies – these tendencies can also be seen in his other parish in Great Dunmow.

There is absolutely no way that vicar Walton would have protected fleeing monks from Beeleigh Abbey.

So whilst I do believe that these secret tunnels did/do exist and were used in medieval times, they certainly weren’t used to protect fleeing monks.

Dr John Bale and his role in the Carmelite Friary in Maldon has always fascinated me. He wrote and performed many anti-Catholic plays all over the east of England – including the one performed in Maldon – and was financially supported by the likes of Thomas Cromwell and the Earl of Oxford.

Today, Dr Bale is becoming widely acknowledged and celebrated by scholars as the forerunner to Shakespeare.

The granddaddy of English playwrights was right here, in sleepy Tudor Maldon!

And he is my final proof that the Protestant vicar of All Saints church would not have accepted fleeing Catholic monks.

Thus, all the evidence points to the fact that those tunnels between Beeleigh Abbey and All Saints Church were definitely not used by fleeing monks in 1536…

I digress…again…

The monasteries…

We’ve looked at monasteries that fell into ruin and are now scars on the English countryside – reminding us of a more troubled times five hundred years ago.

Monastic buildings such as

⛪️ Greyfriars Friary in Dunwich, Suffolk;
⛪️ The great powerful abbey at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

We’ve also looked at monasteries that were given away (or sold) by Henry VIII to his favourites and were later used as houses. For example,

⛪️ Walden Abbey in Saffron Walden – now the World Heritage Site, Audley End House;
⛪️ Beeleigh Abbey in Maldon – now a private residence.

These are just a few of those former monasteries that have merged into today’s landscape. Every single county in England and Wales will have examples of monasteries in ruins, or monasteries incorporated into today’s homes.

Former monasteries were also incorporated into today’s parish churches. Here in Essex a few instantly spring to mind

⛪️ St Andrew’s parish church in Hatfield Peverel. Originally the church was attached to Hatfield Peverel’s Priory (closed in 1536)

⛪️ St Mary the Virgin parish church in Tilty. Part of today’s church was once a ‘chapel outside the gates of Tilt[e]y’s Abbey’ (Abbey closed in 1536). Today, the once magnificent Tilty Abbey has totally vanished – apart from a couple of tiny ruins.

⛪️ St Mary the Virgin parish church in Little Dunmow. In medieval/Tudor times, the village was known as either Dunmow Parva or Dunmow Priory. The latter name an acknowledgement to the Augustinian Priory that stood in the village (closed in 1536).

Little Dunmow Priory

Dunmow Priory was the original home of the traditional English custom still held in Essex today – the Dunmow Flitch. Although since the 1850s, the Dunmow Flitch is normally held in Great Dunmow – not Little Dunmow.

I say “normally” because in the mid-twentieth century the trials were also held in other Essex locations such as Ilford and Maldon.

The Flitch Trials held at Dunmow Priory were so well known that Chaucer wrote about them in his fourteenth century tale about the “The Wife of Bath”

(Sometimes I really do despair about historians’ shocking lack of attention to detail of the Essex countryside. I’ve read several scholarly articles from historians and Chaucer buffs who assert that the Priory was in Great Dunmow. Often, they even include a photograph of St Mary’s church in Great Dunmow and say that it was Dunmow Priory. Hmmmm, it wasn’t! Shocking scholarly research!)

So, after the closing of the monasteries, some buildings were incorporated into parish churches. It’s interesting to note that Henry VIII couldn’t totally rid the landscape of religious buildings.

It would be a good piece of research to undertake to see which East of England former monasteries
– became ruins
– were sold to Henry’s mates and became splendid residential properties
– stayed as religious buildings and became parish churches (or part of a parish church).

I wonder if there was any rhyme or reason to which monasteries crumbled into ruins and which had better fates?

I suspect the richness of the land and buildings played some part. Although in others – such as the destruction of the extremely powerful and wealthy abbey at Bury St Edmunds must have been for political reasons (or Henry VIII setting an example).

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