Netley Abbey

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 Gothic style pioneered by Henry's masons at Westminster Abbey. The high quality and elaborate nature of the church's decoration, particularly its mouldings and tracery, indicate how the machine of royal patronage lead to a move away from the deliberate austerity of the early Cistercian churches towards the grandeur then considered appropriate to a secular church such as a cathedral.[5] Construction of the church proceeded from east to west. The sanctuary and transepts were built first to allow the monks to hold services, and the nave was completed over time. It is not known precisely when the building work began, but major gifts by King Henry of roofing timber and lead from Derbyshire in 1251 and 1252 indicate that some of the eastern parts of the church, and probably of the east cloister range too, had by then reached an advanced stage.[4][6] The presence of a foundation stone at the base of the southeast pier of the crossing inscribed "H. DI. GRA REX ANGE" (Latin for Henry by the Grace of God King of the English) shows that the foundations of the centre of the church reached ground level after 1251, the year Henry III formally became the abbey's patron. Taking many decades to complete, the church was probably finished between 1290 and 1320.[6] Dating the various parts of the building relies predominantly on stylistic criteria.[5][6]

The east window of the church

The church was cruciform in shape, with vaulting and a square sanctuary and a low central tower containing bells.[1] It was aisled throughout, with a pair of chapels on the east side of each transept. There was no triforium, but a narrow gallery surmounted by a clerestory of triple lancet windows ran above each bay of the arcade, as can be seen in the surviving section in the south transept. The vaulting sprang directly from the top of the arcade. The wall at the eastern end of the sanctuary, probably built after 1260, had a large window which features an upper rose and elaborate tracery; the aisle windows were simple paired lancets recessed within an arch. In the nave, the south aisle had plain triple lancets set high in the wall to avoid the cloister roof. The north aisle windows by contrast had richly decorated cusped tracery, reflecting the changes in taste over the long period of construction, and suggesting that this was among the last parts of the church to be finished, probably in the very late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries. The west wall of the church also has a large window, the tracery of which was destroyed in a collapse during the eighteenth century. Surviving fragments show that it was built in a "freer and more advanced style" than other parts of the church, and suggest a date around the turn of the fourteenth century.[6]

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.[6] To the west, under the tower, were the monks' choir stalls where they sat during services, and further west was a pulpitum or rood screen, which blocked access to the ritual areas of the church.[7] In the nave, the lay brothers had their own choir stalls and altar for services.[6][8] The monks of Netley kept up a schedule of services and prayer both day and night following the traditional canonical hours; a staircase in the south transept went up to the monks' dormitory, allowing them to convenient access to the night services.[6][9] The lay brothers had their own entrance to the church at the west end via a covered gallery from their accommodation.[6]

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.[8][10] Over time this rule was relaxed to allow pilgrims to visit shrines, as at Hailes Abbey with its relic of the Holy Blood, and to allow the construction of tombs and chantries for patrons and wealthy benefactors of the house, as in the churches of other orders.[11] Excavated sculpture shows that the church at Netley featured a number of elaborate tombs and monuments.[12]

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 ashlar masonry.[13] Architectural detail was also picked out in maroon.[13] The floors were covered in polychrome encaustic tiles featuring foliage, heraldic beasts, and coats of arms including those of England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Queen Eleanor of Castile, Richard of Cornwall and many powerful noble families. The chapels in the south transept had tiles with symbols of Edward the Confessor and the Virgin Mary.[14] The windows of the church were filled with painted glass, six panels of which have been recovered. They show scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, the Crucifixion, monks, monsters and humorous animals.[13]

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 cloister showing the south transept of the church and the east range. The triple arches in the centre are the entrance to the chapter house.

The east range, which was started at the same time as the church and probably took about 10 years to build,[5] contained many of the abbey's most important rooms. The vaulted library and sacristy were on the ground floor, adjacent to the church.[16] To the south was the chapter house, where the deliberations of the abbey took place and the monks met to transact business and to listen to a daily reading of a chapter of the Rule of St Benedict.[17] At Netley this was a magnificent apartment divided into three aisles with vaults springing from four columns; a stone bench ran around the walls for the monks to sit on, and the abbot's throne was in the centre of the east wall. The entrance to the chapter house from the cloister is via an elaborately moulded arched doorway, flanked on each side by a window of similar size. The windows had sills and columns of Purbeck Marble, the whole forming an impressive composition appropriate to the second most important space in the abbey after the church.[16] The windows on either side of the door would have been unglazed, so as to allow representatives of the laybrothers (who were not members of chapter) to listen to debates.[17] The chapter house was also the site of some tombs, traditionally those of the abbots of a monastery. When the room was excavated, archaeologists discovered scattered human remains and evidence of graves beneath the medieval floor level, indicating that a number of burials.[12]

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, preumably located for security at night.[21]

Façade of the reredorter (communal latrine), with the windows of the Tudor long gallery on the left

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]

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.[5][24] Going east to west, first came the day stair, then the warming house where the communal fire burned constantly to allow the monks to warm themselves after long hours of study in the unheated cloister.[17] The room was probably vaulted and had its great fireplace on the west wall to allow heat to rise to the refectory or dining hall next door.[24] It is likely that, as at the great Cistercian house Fountains Abbey, the chamber above the warming house was the muniment room, where the abbey's charters, records and title deeds, as well as those of local lords, were kept.[24][25]

The refectory projected south from the centre of the range, as was usual in Cistercian monasteries.[24][26] This is now almost completely demolished save for the north wall, although the foundations survive underground and have been excavated.[24] It was a long hall with a dais for the abbot and important guests at the south end. There was a pulpit in the west wall to allow a monk to read to the community during the meal. The kitchen lies west; it had a central fireplace, as was Cistercian custom, and was placed to allow food to be served through hatches both to the choir monks' refectory and to the separate dining hall for the lay brothers on the west side.[24][27]

Plan of the abbey

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]

The abbot's house with the church and cloister to the left

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 gatehouse.[34] A chapel, known as the capella ante portas (Latin for chapel outside the gates) was placed by the outer gatehouse for the use of travellers and the local population. Of the precinct buildings, only the abbot's house, the moat and the fishponds have left visible remains.[35][36]

Netley's fresh water was supplied by two aqueducts which ran for several miles east and west of the abbey, up into the areas of modern Southampton and Eastleigh. The remains of the eastern aqueduct, now known as Tickleford Gully, can be seen in Wentworth Gardens, Southampton.[37]

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, alterations to the medieval structure in red Tudor brick and traces of the formal gardens. In most places the abbey stands close to its original height. The sacristy/library, the south transept chapels, the treasury, the reredorter undercroft and the lower floor of the abbot's house still have their vaults intact. Medieval heraldic polychrome tiles found on the site can be seen in the sacristy,[16] and Henry III's foundation stone remains in the church. The abbey ruins are set in wooded parkland to the west of the village of Netley and constitute the most complete surviving Cistercian monastery in southern England. The site is maintained by English Heritage, and is open to the public.[67] Netley is an Ancient Monument protected by law.[68]

During the summer months the abbey is occasionally host to events such as open-air theatre[69] and was the site of a flashmob wedding[70] on 25 June 2011.

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]

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 antiquary Browne Walters:

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]

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 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]