Saturday Snapshots of a Gateway to the Past

Polesworth Abbey Gatehouse

This gatehouse is virtually all that remains of Polesworth Abbey, and I can never pass it without thinking of the nuns who walked beneath it when the were forced to leave during the dissolution of the monasteries. For some of the women it would have been the only home they had ever known – and one of them was 100 years old, so just imagine how she must have felt.

It was here that the nuns distributed bread to the poor of the village, and as they left they must have wondered who would feed them and how they would survive in the harsh world outside their convent and its church. The Benedictine abbey, founded in Saxon times, was rebuilt by the Normans, and became very prosperous through donations from wealthy benefactors who, doubtlessly, hoped their generosity would secure them a place in Heaven. The nuns owned woods, meadows and other land, as well as mills, churches, a dovecote, and properties owned by tenants living and working on their land.

Looking in: Walking through the archway takes you
along a path, lined with trees and flowers, to the
graveyard and church

 In 1536 a commission set up by Henry VIII to record the assets of religious establishments, put the annual value of Polesworth Abbey at £110s 6s 2d, noting it was in 'good and convenient repair. The income from the 'great woods' and the 'stocks, stores and moveable goods' (whatever they may have been) was even higher, and if you multiply this across the country, you begin to see why the king was so keen to get his hands on the monasteries. It may be a cynical point of view, but it does strike me that the whole process had more to do with economics that religion.

Anyway, the Commission recommended that Polesworth should not be closed, because if it did the town would fall into 'ruyne and dekaye', and it went on to explain how more than 30 children were educated there, and that the nuns had 38 people dependent on them, including 3 priests, 8 yeomen, 17 peasants, 9 women servants, and one 'old impotent creature, sometime cook of the House, who had her living here by promise'. This appeal was successful – possibly because the Abbess, Alicia Fitz-Herbert, paid a fee of £50 - and in 1537 Polesworth was granted exemption.

Looking out: the view through the gateway into the street.

 But two years later the 60-year-old abbess surrendered the abbey voluntarily. Perhaps pressure was brought to bear on her, or perhaps she realised that the nunnery would eventually be closed whether she liked it or not, so felt it was better to give in. At any rate, Alicia and the 14 'virtuous and relygous nounes' under her rule, all clad in their black robes, walked away to start their new life. Their fate is unknown, but there is a record of their names, and they were awarded pensions.  Local historian Jean Wood lists the names, and a great deal of other fascinating information, in 'A New Look At Polesworth History'.

In 1544 Henry sold the abbey to the Goodere family, who demolished most of the buildings and erected a manor house (which is now the vicarage). The nuns' priest, John Bower, became their chaplain..

The building to the right of the arch was part of the gatehouse

 The gatehouse through which the nuns walked when they left, survives. Parts of it date back to 1343, although some alterations were made over the years. The main archway was for horse-drawn vehicles, and the smaller one for pedestrians. Originally there must have been stout, protective doors, and there was a room downstairs, to the left of the little arch,  for a porter, who checked everyone in and out. 

The building to the right of the main arch was part of the gatehouse complex. It's thought the nuns may have kept horses or livestock in the lower part, and that the gatehouse may have been where guests stayed. After the Dissolution part of the gatehouse became a schoolroom, and later still some of it was used as a 'lock-up' or prison. 

A close-up of the room above the archwayn

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/

Witches, Woods, and a Big Cat (Saturday Snapshots)

I’ve been at my mother’s for a few days, and I scheduled these Saturday Snapshots to appear early this morning, but forgot to press publish, so they just saved themselves and stayed hidden away!  They  were taken a week or so ago, on a glorious sunny day when the Man of the House and I went for a walk through Hopwas Woods, which has something of a spooky reputation.

Back in 1984 police were called when 16 people were discovered dancing naked in the woods. They denied they were witches, saying they were members of the Order of the Silver Star, an international occult organisation, engaged in a ritual to avert a natural disaster. More recently, in December 2010, the West Midlands Ghost Club unearthed a mysterious copper tablet inscribed with strange markings, and members also found an Egyptian style statuette. Horror writer Guy N Smith, who was brought up in the village, set some novels here, and over the years there have been sightings of a golden-orangey big cat, and of a tall ghostly figure.

 It’s difficult perhaps, to separate fact from fiction, and many people are convinced the woods have an unsettling atmosphere, but we didn’t feel anything odd or sinister: it was just very ‘treeish’, and amazingly quiet, especially when you consider that the busy A51 is so near. We could hear birds singing, leaves rustling, and branches creaking, while the noise of traffic was so muffled it sounded like the distant roar of the sea.

On the day we visited, the bluebells were still in bloom, looking a little past their best, but carpeting the ground beneath the trees with a haze of blue. The sun filtering through the leaves on the trees created a kind of dappled effect of light and shade. We saw grey squirrels, and butterflies (like the Speckled Wood pictured below), as well as ladybirds and all kinds of insects, butterflies and birds, which we were unable to identify because we left the recently acquired binoculars at home, so we have decided we need a ‘walking backpack’ for future expeditions!

 I’m always surprised that there are so many lovely places within such easy reach of home, and Hopwas is only two or three miles away, about halfway between Tamworth, where we live, and Lichfield.  The woodland, also known as Hopwas Hays Woods, is on a hill and seems to be an ancient site: it’s mentioned in the Domesday Book, where it is described as being six furlongs in length and three in breadth. Today the area covers almost 400 acres, and is owned by Tarmac. Fortunately, there is no quarrying, but much of it is fenced off, with wire, gates and forbidding signs, which seems a shame – ever the rebel, I ended up marching along singing Ewan McColl’s ‘The Manchester Rambler’ and thinking about the mass tresspass on Kinder Scout in 1932!

 Anyway, I tried to find out a little more about Hopwas Woods, but have only discovered that during the 18th and 19th centuries it belonged to the wealthy Levett family, and there was a Woodhouse (now demolished) where the woodman/gamekeeper lived.

 Last year local artist Gwyddion Flint got together with other artists and historians to stage an exhibition inspired by Hopwas Woods. He produced a booklet, in which Guy N Smith wrote about his childhood memories of The Woodhouse, and how he went shooting in the woods.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/