Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. In 1536, Netley Abbey was seized by Henry VIII of England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the buildings granted to William Paulet, a wealthy Tudor politician. It was used as a country house until the beginning of the eighteenth century, after which it was abandoned and partially demolished for building materials. Subsequently the ruins became a tourist attraction, and provided inspiration to poets and artists of the Romantic movement. In the early twentieth century the site was given to the nation, and it is now a
About Netley Abbey in brief
Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. In 1536, Netley Abbey was seized by Henry VIII of England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the buildings granted to William Paulet, a wealthy Tudor politician. It was used as a country house until the beginning of the eighteenth century, after which it was abandoned and partially demolished for building materials. Subsequently the ruins became a tourist attraction, and provided inspiration to poets and artists of the Romantic movement. In the early twentieth century the site was given to the nation, and it is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, cared for by English Heritage. The extensive remains consist of the church, cloister buildings, abbot’s house, and fragments of the post-Dissolution mansion. The church was cruciform in shape, with a square sanctuary and a low central central tower containing bells. The monks were best known to their neighbours for the generous hospitality they offered to travellers on land and sea. It is thought that only after the house was taken under the wing of Henry III, who became interested in it in the mid-1240s, was progress made on the buildings. The fruits of royal patronage were demonstrated by the construction of a large church, 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. The surviving section in the south of the surviving transepts of the abbey can be seen in the surviving section of the arcade, which is probably built after 1260 after the eastern end of the sanctuary, which had a large wall at the end of which a large window at the east side of each arcade. The first monks arrived to settle the site on 25 July 1239 from neighbouring Beaulieu Abbey, a year after the bishop’s death. In 1251, the year Henry III formally became the Abbey’s patron, the church was probably finished between 1290 and 1220. The Abbey was one of a pair of monasteries which the bishop intended as a memorial to himself; the other is La Clarté-Dieu in Saint-Paterne-Racan, France. The founder’s charter shows the name of the Abbey as \”the church of St Mary of Edwardstow\”, or the Latin \”Ecclesia Sanctae Mariae de loco Sancti Edwardi\” although the title of the charter calls it ‘Letley’. The present name of netley is most likely derived from this.
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This page is based on the article Netley Abbey published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 12, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
