Beeleigh Abbey near Maldon

Maldon, Essex

Maldon is a town on the Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon district and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation.Maldon is twinned with the Dutch town of Cuijk...

 in Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, was a monastery constructed in 1180 for the White Canons, otherwise known as the Norbertines or Premonstratensians. The order linked the change of the separate life of monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

s in the 12th century with the retrospective life of the friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

, who was considerably more active.

History

Beeleigh Abbey was originally a daughter of Newham Abbey in Lincolnshire, established at the instigation of Robert Mantell, lord of the manor of Little Maldon. The abbey obtained a royal charter from Richard I in 1189.

The heart of Saint Roger of Beeleigh (Roger Niger)

Saint Roger Niger

Roger Niger was a thirteenth century cleric who became Bishop of London. He is also known as Saint Roger of Beeleigh.-Life:...

 - a thirteenth century Bishop of London was buried at Beeleigh and the abbey became a pilgrimage site. In 1289, pilgrims included King Edward I and Queen Eleanor

Eleanor of Castile

Eleanor of Castile was the first queen consort of Edward I of England. She was also Countess of Ponthieu in her own right from 1279 until her death in 1290, succeeding her mother and ruling together with her husband.-Birth:...

.

After the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, many of the abbey buildings were pulled down. In 1540, Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 granted the abbey and lands to Sir John Gate, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Thirty years after the land was given away there was an extension added to the abbey of a farmhouse.

During the 18th century, the building was used as a public house. By the late 19th century, the buildings were in a ruinous condition, but in 1912, restoration was begun by Captain F W Grantham. In 1943, the Abbey was purchased by William Foyle

William Foyle

William Foyle co-founded Foyles bookshop in 1903 with his brother, Gilbert Foyle.The eldest son of a Shoreditch grocer, William attended Owens School and King's College London with his brother Gilbert. After failing their Civil Service examinations in 1902 the brothers advertised their used...

, owner of Foyles bookshop

Foyles

W & G Foyle Ltd. is a bookshop at 113–119 Charing Cross Road, London, England. Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf area and number of titles on display...

.

The abbey is now a private residence and is not generally open to the public, but small private groups can be shown around it by prior arrangement on specific dates, through "Invitation to View". The roofs of the resilient mediaeval buildings can be seen from a footpath that runs down market hill and ends following the River Chelmer. The Abbey gardens, are now also open to the public, on specific days during the summer months.

As a point of interesting recent history, the Premonstratensians returned to Essex in 2008, establishing a house at St. Philip's Priory

St. Philip's Priory

St. Philip's Priory situated on New London Road in Chelmsford, Essex, UK is a Premonstratensian priory of canons regular. It is dedicated to Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and St. Philip Benizi....

 in Chelmsford

Chelmsford

Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

, some 8 miles from Beeleigh. In 2010 the Prior of St Philips Priory and three of the canons, were welcomed to Beeleigh Abbey, the first such visit by White Canons since the visit in 1955 by Father Norbert Backmund of Windberg Abbey in Bavaria. He was the first White Canon to have visited Beeleigh since the monastic dissolution in 1536. In April 2011, the Abbot General, worldwide head of the Premonstratensian Order (White Canons)in Rome, Father Thomas Handgraetinger, was welomed at Beeleigh, together with the Prior of Chelmsford, Father Hugh Allan, and three canons.

According to local myths the abbey is connected by an underground tunnel to All Saints Church in Maldon, the reason for its construction supposedly being that during the dissolution of the monasteries the monks needed to be able to retreat to the church if the abbey was razed. One story relates that this tunnel apparently still existed some years ago and that its entrance was found by archaeologists. Finding it too full of debris to explore it themselves a dog was sent in, and some time later was heard barking in the depths of the abbey, and was found in its cellar.

In August 2000, following the death in 1999 of the previous incumbent, William Foyle's daughter Christina Foyle, Christopher Foyle, chairman of Foyles Bookshops, and from 1978 until 2006, chairman of the Air Foyle Group, his cargo and passenger airline corporation, and his wife Catherine, purchased Beeleigh Abbey and its 400-acre estate beside the river Chelmer from Christina Foyle's executors. They then set about a four year restoration of the Abbey and its gardens, which had deteriorated somewhat during the previous 30 years. As a result, in 2008, they were awarded, by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, their East of England Conservation Award, and later in the same year, their National Conservation Award, for the best restored historical building in the UK.

Archaeology

In 2000, the owner arranged for an archaeological investigation of the site that continued until 2006. A geophysical survey was followed by an excavation. During the course of the investigation there were a number of "open days" which allowed hundreds of visitors to see the site. Nothing could be dated to the 1180 construction, but among the discoveries were the foundations of a medieval hall house. Other finds included large amounts of pottery dated from the 12th to the 16th century. A few early (13th - 16th century) coins were found as well as some jeton

Jeton

Jetons were token or coin-like medals produced across Europe from the 13th through the 17th centuries. They were produced as counters for use in calculation on a lined board similar to an abacus. They also found use as a money substitute in games, similar to modern casino chips or poker chips...

s. One fascinating find was a seal matrix

Seal (device)

A seal can be a figure impressed in wax, clay, or some other medium, or embossed on paper, with the purpose of authenticating a document ; but the term can also mean the device for making such impressions, being essentially a mould with the mirror image of the design carved in sunken- relief or...

that belonged to the Abbey