Entry: Adult £28.50, child (5 – 16) £17.25, family £75.50. Note: Prices are reduced by £3.00 and £10.00 for a family ticket if purchased in advance online.
Access: Parking onsite.
We’ve all had it, that doozy of a dream wherein we are mugged by a bunch of monks, invariably of the Cistercian order. I’ve had it, you’ve had it, and King John I (1166 – 1216), he had it bad. So bad that he decided to make amends for his previous oppression of the order by gifting them land in the New Forest to build an abbey there. So goes the legend. We’ll never know whether the king was accosted by irate Cistercians lurking in the land of Nod, but Beaulieu Abbey was indeed founded by John in 1204 and would prove to be the only ecclesiastical foundation of his seventeen-year reign.
John continued to fund the construction of the abbey and apparently wished to be buried there, but it wasn’t completed – and the church not dedicated – until 1246, thirty years after his death. He was buried in Worcester Cathedral instead, where his tomb can still be seen today. John’s son and successor Henry III (1207 – 1272), who was present when the building was dedicated in 1246, was also a generous benefactor of the abbey.
Such royal patronage enabled the abbey to become considerably wealthy, but it was a later king that sounded its death knell. Just over 300 years after its dedication, Beaulieu fell victim to Henry VIII Dissolution of the Monasteries, and it was seized by the government in April 1538.
Beaulieu Abbey was originally called Bella Locus Regis, or “The beautiful place of the king”. The first monks came from France and translated Bella Locus into the Norman French ‘Beaulieu’. This arched doorway and the wall beyond it on the right are pretty much all that survives of a once majestic building. In his 1926 book In Search Of England, pioneering travel writer H. V. Morton called the abbey “a spectre of a church: the sky its vault, the thrush in the yew tree its choir, the dews of night its benediction. Not one stone stands upon another, yet the shape of the great abbey remains in the field”. The above photo was taken in what would have been the abbey’s nave. Where the pillars once stood can be clearly seen on each side of the path, with the foundations of the northern wall beyond the ‘pillars’ on the left. A cross stand at the far end of the path, marking where the high alter once stood. Looking across the cloister to the two buildings to survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries intact. On the left is the refectory where the choir monks took their meals, and the Domus on the right was formerly the abbey’s lay brothers. The refectory was converted into Beaulieu Parish Church sometime after the Reformation and still serves this purpose. Unfortunately it was closed at the time of our visit. The ground floor of the Domus now hosts an interesting exhibition on the history of the abbey. The first floor of the Domus displays a series of tapestries by Belinda, Baroness Montagu (1932 – 2022)depicting the history of the abbey. Pope Innocent III granted Beaulieu powers of sanctuary far beyond the usual, and when the monastery closed in 1538 it was found that 32 sanctuary seekers were living in the abbey grounds with their families, their crimes ranging from debt to murder. Anne Beauchamp, wife of Richard Neville AKA Warwick the Kingmaker, sought sanctuary in 1471 following her husband’s death at the Battle of Barnet, and Perkin Warbeck, who falsely claimed to be one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, fled to Beaulieu for sanctuary in 1497. He later surrendered to Henry VII and was executed at the Tower of London. His capture outside the abbey is pictured on the tapestry on the right.The Lane is a lovely mediaeval mini-street. It separated the living quarters of the laymen, seen on the left, from the rest of the abbey complex. The former vestry is now a private burial ground for the Montagu family. The tomb of Edward, 3rd Baron Montagu, founder of the National Motor Museum, is on the right.An elegant quote from St. Bernard, but which St. Bernard? There are several, but most of them died before Beaulieu Abbey was founded. By process of elimination, that leaves Bernardo Tolomei (1272 – 1348), an Italian priest who was beatified in 1644 and canonised in 2009. However, I can’t find anything that connects him to Beaulieu.
Destination or Diversion?
The abbey on its own constitutes no more than a diversion, but the above prices include entry to the Beaulieu National Motor Museum, Palace House, and all other site attractions, so these things combined add up to a full day out and would therefore be classed as a destination.
Model of how the abbey may have looked in its heyday. The arched doorway on the lower left is where we came in (see first photo).
