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Battle Abbey and the 1066 Battlefield |
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On the 14th October 1066, the armies of William of Normandy and Harold of England met on Senlac Ridge for a battle which lasted all day and changed the course of British history. Following his victory, William decided to atone for the slaughter of that day by establishing a monastery free of episcopal control. Four Benedictine monks from Marmoutier were drafted in to form the nucleus of the religious community at the new Battle Abbey. It was consecrated in 1094 and, endowed with lands bequeathed by William, was already the fifteenth richest monastic house in the country. |
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| During the Hundred Years War, the abbots were the main organisers of resistance to the French raids plaguing the coast, and the fortified gatehouse dates from this troubled period (1338). Income was severely affected by both the wars and the Black Death, which cut the number of monks from 52 to 34. Better times followed in the fifteenth century, allowing for some rebuilding of the cloisters and the abbot’s lodging.
The final Abbot, appointed in 1529, was John Hamond who Thomas Cromwell savagely described as ‘the veriest hayne, beetle and buserde and the arentest chorle that ever I see’ (the lowest clod, stupidest numbskull, and the most out-and-out bumpkin I ever met). Hamond and 18 monks surrendered the Abbey on 27 May 1538, ending 444 years of monastic life. |
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The subsequent owner was Henry VIII’s Master of the Horse, Sir Anthony Browne, whose son became the first Viscount Montague. The property remained in the family until being sold to Sir Thomas Webster in 1715. The Websters were responsible for the buildings now used as the Abbey School, originally The Webster family retained possession of the Abbey until it was acquired for the nation in 1976 |
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The Cantiaci TTFF tour started from the Gatehouse and proceeded in an anticlockwise direction. After visiting the exhibition hall which explains the events leading up to the Norman Conquest, we strolled quite leisurely through the undercrofts which lay beneath the demolished Guest Range. The walk at this point was along the line of the Saxon shield wall in 1066. From there we proceeded to the dormitory range, in which vaulted ceilings remain in excellent condition in the Common Room and the Novices Chamber. Beyond this lays the remnants of the Abbey Church, and the site of the High Altar which marks the spot where Harold fell. The crypt, now open to the sky, has been denuded of tombs but the bases of its pillars remain, as do the recesses where the tombs of the abbots would once have stood. An impressive ice house and dairy, built by the Websters in the nineteenth century, stands nearby and a walk along the precinct wall returned us to the Gatehouse, where we took the time to visit the small museum on the first floor. After this we had time for light refreshments at one of Battle’s many welcoming tea-rooms before separating to make our way home through some horrendous showers. report by Mark McManus |
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