When I wrote my post about castles back in April I said that I would report back on some of the ones I visit. Well, why stop at castles? They are my favourite type of historical building admittedly, but there are many more fascinating ones round and about.
So onto an abbey!
Yesterday morning we decided to brave the rain and go to Battle Abbey, which is next to the field where the famous Battle of 1066 took place, hence the name of the town. It took us just under an hour of driving through continuous torrential rain to get there, and when we made it, looking drop-dead gorgeous in our kaghouls (as you do), the custodian warned us that most of the site was outdoors. We were unperturbed however. We have both grown up on British summer holidays, and are therefore old hat when it comes to visiting open-air sites in rainy weather.
The abbey, owned by English Heritage, is an interesting place. It was allegedly in a privileged position due to its proximity to the famous battle, and therefore received great honour and wealth. I've often struggled with this about abbeys, monasteries, and priories, and I'm still unsure what to make of them. The museum in the Gatehouse gives a good illustration on life as a Medieval monk. There were many artefacts in the museum in glass cases that had special alarms fitted. Even items that many of us (including me with an archaeological background) would consider to be of little monetary value (always of great historical value), seem to have been targeted or actually stolen at one stage or another, so needed to be kept closely guarded. The abbey itself is mostly ruins, very little of what the Normans built remains, although there are number of rooms built later in the Medieval period, that retain their original shape and vaulted ceilings, so you can get a sense of what the space was like. After the dissolution of the monasteries Henry VIII handed Battle Abbey over to some lord, who turned it the western part into his private home. That part is now a private school.
For us the most fascinating buildings were the little dairy, and the ice store, which were built in the nineteenth century. The ice store initially looks like a Second World War Anderson shelter, although made out of brick. You enter and go down some metal stairs to stand above what looks like a well. My fiance was enamoured - as he always is by anything underground and apparently secret - whereas I freaked out a bit at how unsturdy the metal seemed, and turned to leave too quickly, smacking my head on one of the low wooden beams at the entrance, doh!
Undoubtedly, my favourite area of the site was the battlefield itself. The view from the abbey across it is stunning. As the rain cleared and rays of sunlight burst their way through the clouds, the field spoke of nothing but peace and beauty. And yet it was where, almost 1000 years ago, the course of English history changed dramatically. It is where hundreds of men died, and much blood was spilt, where history was turned on its head in a day. You would never know it to look at it now. It is like peace has descended upon a place that was the witness to so much pain, and cleared it of all agony. It is a strange phenomena. I had a similar experience, although the history is achingly recent, when I visited the Somme battlefields in France. It seems like a trite example, and it does sound like I am being sentimental, but for me, this sense of tranquillity demonstrates hope. Hope of healing. It can be hard to relate to soldiers in 1066, but they were real, living breathing men, who had families. 1066 or 1916 the principle of lost lives is the same, and there is a beautiful melancholy about those battlefields now. What will it be like for those places, destroyed by battles, not just wars, but of all kinds, now? Sometimes it feels like those places will never know healing, will never be beautiful. But I have a hope that there is.
Ok, seriously off on a tangent there...
I should end that serious note, on a silly one. In the cafe at the abbey there were quotes relating to the Battle of 1066 dotted around the walls. The one next to our table read, "
The Norman Conquest was a good thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation." Sellar & Yeatman,
1066 and All That, 1930 - to which my fiance responded, "The irony is that the opposite was true for France!"
