| Ramsey Abbey | |
|---|---|
 Remains ofRamsey Abbey Gatehouse | |
| Location | Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Coordinates | 52°26′54″N0°06′03″W / 52.44833°N 0.10083°W /52.44833; -0.10083 |
| Area | Huntingdonshire |
| Founded | 969 |
| Built | 10th–16th centuries |
| Demolished | 1537 |
| Official name | Ramsey Abbey (remains of) |
| Reference no. | 1006838 |
  Location of Ramsey Abbey in Cambridgeshire | |
Ramsey Abbey was aBenedictineabbey inRamsey,Huntingdonshire (now part ofCambridgeshire), England. It was founded about AD 969 anddissolved in 1539.
The site of the abbey in Ramsey is now ascheduled monument.[1] Most of the abbey's buildings were demolished after the dissolution but surviving structures areGrade I and Grade II* listed buildings.Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse is in the care of theNational Trust and theChurch of St Thomas à Becket, Ramsey was one of the buildings of the abbey.
Ramsey Abbey was founded in 969 byOswald,Bishop of Worcester on land donated byÆthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia (Earl Ailwyn), where he had already built a wooden chapel for three monks. The foundation was part of the mid-10th-centuryEnglish Benedictine reform,[2] in whichEly andPeterborough were also refounded. Æthelwine gave the new foundation properties including an estate at nearby Bodsey andHoughton Mill.[3][4]
The Frankish scholarAbbo of Fleury came to Ramsey at Oswald's invitation during the period 985–7, when his fortunes atFleury Abbey were at a low ebb. He wrote two surviving works for his students while he was there; thePassio S. Eadmundi and thequestiones grammaticales.[5]
The importantRamsey Psalter or Psalter of Oswald (British Library,Harley MS 2904) is anAnglo-Saxonilluminatedpsalter of the last quarter of the 10th century.[6] Certain liturgical features have suggested that it was intended for use at Ramsey Abbey, or for the personal use of Ramsey's founder Oswald of Worcester. This is not to be confused with another Ramsey Psalter in thePierpont Morgan Library, New York (MS M. 302), made between 1286 and 1316.
Æthelwine at the suggestion ofOswald of Worcester founded a small hermitage for three hermits with a wooden chapel at a location indicated by the actions of a bull, on the island of Ramsey with impassiblefen on three sides. Impressed by the story Oswald sent a prior,Germanus and twelve monks fromWestbury-on-Trym to form the Abbey. Starting in 969, a large stone-built church was built over the next five years. Two towers stood up at the topmost points of the roofs, the smaller one at the front of the church towards the west, 'offered a beautiful sight from afar' to people coming to the island. The larger one, in the middle of a four-armed structure rested on four columns stabilised by connecting arches. This abbey building remained until a Norman abbot had a grander church built in the 12th century.
In 1143Geoffrey de Mandeville expelled the monks, used the abbey as a fortress and considerably damaged the buildings. The abbey suffered for three centuries from disputes with thebishops of Ely over the manors ofChatteris andSomersham.[7] It paid 4,000 eels yearly toPeterborough Abbey for access to its quarries of limestone atBarnack.
In the order of precedence for abbots in Parliament, Ramsey was third afterGlastonbury andSt Alban's.[8]
The abbey was an international centre of Hebrew scholarship in the late Middle Ages. It prospered until theDissolution of the Monasteries in 1537. At the time of the Dissolution there were 34 monks.
In 1787 Mark Noble noted:[9]
The abbey of Ramsey, i.e. the Ram's isle, was one of the richest foundations in the kingdom: the abbot was mitred, and sat in the house of lords as baron of Broughton; the abbey had 387hides of land, 200 of which were in Huntingdonshire: the monks were not famed for their liberality, if we believe the following ancient lines:
- Crowland as courteous, as courteous as may bee,
- Thorney the bane of many a good Tree,
- Ramsey the rich, and Peterborough the proud,
- Sawtry by the way that poor abbay,
- Gave more almes than all they.
In 1540the Crown sold the abbey lands to SirRichard Williams (alias Cromwell).[8] He used most of the abbey buildings as a source of stone for walls and cottages at hand, and to provide goodBarnack stone for new buildings. He had part of theabbey gatehouse dismantled and re-erected atHinchingbrooke House. Much stone was taken to Cambridge to buildGonville and Caius,King's andTrinity colleges. Stone was taken for the tower for the parish church of St Mary the Virgin inGodmanchester. This included a doorway from the abbey that was dismantled and re-erected as the west doorway of St Mary's. As late as 1672 stone for a new tower for Ramsey's ownparish church of St Thomas à Becket was also taken from the Abbey.
Around 1600 SirHenry Williams (alias Cromwell) had a house built on the site of the abbey church. Six bays of the 13th-century Lady Chapel survive as the basement of the house.[10]
In 1737Coulson Fellowes, later MP forHuntingdonshire, bought the house. It passed down through several generations of the family. In 1804–06William Henry Fellowes had the abbey house enlarged to designs by SirJohn Soane. In 1889 his sonEdward Fellowes was created 1stBaron de Ramsey. In 1931 at the coming of age ofJohn Ailwyn Fellowes, 4th Baron de Ramsey the family moved its seat toAbbots Ripton Hall. In 1937 the Fellowes leased the building for 99 years to Ramsey Abbey School. In 1952 Major The Hon. Henry Rogers Broughton gave the gatehouse to theNational Trust in memory of his late wife The Hon. Diana Broughton (née Fellowes).[11]
Ramsey Abbey House, the Gatehouse, and theparish church of St Thomas à Becket all survive,[12] along with part of the abbey's medieval precinct wall.[13]
Ramsey Abbey House, the former 17th-century home of Sir Henry Cromwell and latterly the seat of the Fellowes family, is currently part ofAbbey College, Ramsey. The Bodseymonastic grange survives as the Grade-I listed Bodsey House.[14]
TheAbbey Gatehouse is aNational Trust property.[15] This is believed to be an inner gatehouse, the main outer gatehouse was removed by Sir Henry Williams (alias Cromwell), the son and heir of Sir Richard, to form the main gateway toHinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon, his newly built winter residence.[16] Today what remains of the gatehouse also forms a part of the Abbey College.[a]
TheChurch of St Thomas à Becket, Ramsey was built in about 1180 or 1190 as either thehospitium or the infirmary of the abbey. It was originally an aisled hall with a chapel at the east end with a vestry on the north side and the warden's lodgings on the south, but both these have been demolished. The building was converted into a parish church in about 1222.
WhenWhittlesey Mere was drained, athurible and other silver items were found in the bed of the mere and, from the ram's head on one of these pieces, were believed to have come from the Abbey.[17] The thurible (orcenser),[18] and an incense boat[19] are now in theVictoria and Albert Museum. Also found in the bed were blocks of quarried stone,[20] that are conjectured to have fallen from a barge on the way to the Abbey.
The names of abbots from AD 993 onwards are known.[21] Notable among them are:
Attribution
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain:Noble, Mark (1787).Memoirs of the Protectorate-house of Cromwell: Deduced from an Early Period, and Continued Down to the Present Time,... Vol. 1 (3 ed.). London: CGJ and J Robinson. pp. 5–20.
