The grandeur that had been Netley as an Abbey, and then a great house for one of Henry Villas new men, lay far in the past at the dawn of the eighteenth century. After the ignominy of being used as a quarry site for Netley Castle and other local building im projects, the Abbey lay now as a ruin.
A magnificent ruin but a ruin none the less.
Lucky for the Abbey therefore that England was enjoying a flirtation with Romanticism and the country was soon awash with writers and poets looking for inspiration. An early guide describes the Abbey thus:
 

Monuments of Antiquity Etc, in the Neighbourhood of Southampton 1781

'Mr. Dummer, the present possessor of these venerable ruins, has enclosed them with a wall, and, by a judicious management of the trees, which have spontaneously sprung up among the mouldering walls has greatly improved the beauty and solemnity of the scene; and by that means, rendered it as well worth visiting as any object of that kind in Great Britain. The spot whereon these ruins stand, is almost surrounded (as Mr, Keate observes, who has eternised their memory in an elegant Poem) with beautiful woods, which slope gradually to the edge of the sea: and the prospects from hence, by land and water, are equally extensive and delightful'.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) the writer and younger son of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, was an enthusiastic visitor to the site. It is perhaps no coincidence that he went on to pen the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto published in 1764:

'But how shall I describe Netley to you? I can only by telling you, that it is the spot in the world for which Mr Chute and I wish. The ruins are vast, and retain fragments of beautiful fretted roofs pendent in the air, with all variety of Gothic patterns of windows wrapped round and round with ivy - many trees are sprouted up amongst the walls, and only want to be increased with cypresses! ...In short, they are not the ruins of Netley, but of paradise — Oh! The purple abbots, what a spot had they chosen to slumber in! The scene is so beautifully tranquil, yet so lively, that they seem only to have retired into the world'.

The Mr Chute referred to was John Chute, a connoisseur whom Walpole had met on his Grand Tour and who formed with Walpole and Richard Bentley a Committee of Taste.

Walpole visited more than once and in 1764 travelled with the poet, best remembered for his Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard, Thomas Gray.

'In the bosum of the woods (concealed from profane eyes) lie hid the ruins of Netteley-Abbey, There may be richer and greater houses of religion, but the Abbot is content with his situation. See there at the top of that hanging meadow under the shade of those old trees, that bend into a half-circle about it, he is walking slowly (good Man!) and bidding his beads for the souls of his Benefactors, interred in that venerable pile, that lies beneath him. Beyond it (the meadow still descending) nods a thicket of oaks, that mask the building, and have excluded a view too garish, and too luxuriant for a holy eye, only on either hand they leave an opening to the blew glittering sea. Did you not observe how, as that white sail shot by and was lost, he turned and crossed himself, to drive the Tempter from him, that had thrown, that distraction in his way, I should tell you, that the Ferryman, who row 'd me, a lusty young Fellow, told me, that he would not for all the world pass a night at the Abbey, there were such things seen near it,) the'  there was a power of money hid then

Where Walpole led other lesser writers of the Gothic genre followed. The most famous house of sensational fiction, the Minerva Press, published Richard Warner's 'Netley Abbey, a Gothic Story in two volumes' in 1795:

'That the abbey conceals a mystery of a horrible nature I have no
doubt....'

Edward the hero, turning with all the impatience of youthful curiosity,' could not wait 'to unravel the mystery of Netley Abbey. Of course there was a damsel in need of rescue from the sinister cowled inhabitants of the Abbey Edward confronts the Abbot thus:

'Father,' replied Edward, but I was called hither by the screams of female distress'.
'Holy virgin!' exclaimed the abbot, 'what doest thou say? - A female within these hallowed walls!... - No! the inmates of Netley Abbey have long renounced the sex.'

Of course Edward was triumphant, rescuing the imprisoned Agnes from an Abbey cell.

It was not only in literature that Netley Abbey was immortalised. William Pearce's 'Netley Abbey, An Operatic Farce' was performed at Covent Garden in 1794. The last scene was played before an elaborate stage set representing the ruins by moonlight produced by Mr John Inigo Richards of the Royal Academy. Pearce described the work as being 'one of the most picturesque portraits of a Gothic Ruin, that the hand of Science ever produced. Mr Richards was scene painter at Covent Garden from 1777-1803. Mr Pearce, the front page of the operatic farce informs us, was also the author of 'Hartford Bridge' and 'The Midnight Wanderers'

One character from the opera, was a stage Irishman, Phenegan M'Scrape, who combined being a barber and fiddler, and is given to making snide remarks about the pretension of those who adore the' picturesque and the antique whilst evicting tenants to improve the view; It must cost your worship a great deal to keep those ruins in a continued state of decay' he declares to Mr Oakland, the
modernising owner of the Abbey.

The opera also makes reference to the Abbey being the hiding place for booty and indeed in the heyday of smuggling in the 17th and 18th centuries it was a known location for stashing tea, rum and other necessities of life. It is probable that the smugglers fermented the stories of ghostly happenings to put off prying eyes from their nefarious operation.

Ghosts

As Thomas Gray remarked about the Abbey it was:

'Pregnant with poetry ... one need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits at noon-day' but was it all imagination'

Back in 1700 when the builder Walter Taylor was intending to remove the stones and use them to erect a town house at Newport and dwelling houses elsewhere, he was the victim of a nightmare. In the dream he was threatened by a monk who warned of great mischief if he persisted with his plans. The dream involved Taylor seeing that, in the course of the demolition of the building, a large stone from one of the windows fell on him and fractured his skull. Taylor was a Non-
Conformist and friend of the father of Dr Isaac Watts, to whom he  told the dream. Watts Senior suggested that Taylor should keep out of the way during demolition. However due to avarice and contrary to the advice of other friends, Taylor took part in the demolition work JH himself and, in the course of tearing down a board, he loosened a  stone that fell and fractured his head. The wound was not considered mortal but, in operating to extract a splinter, the surgeon's
instrument slipped, entered Taylor's brain and caused instant death. A victim, it is said, of the curse of Netley Abbey.

'To muse on the chanty of old dispensed at tne gates, on the early call of the Matin bell which woke up the fathers, on the guilty Southampton builder who had sought to destroy and had himself been destroyed and who lies now beneath the monument of wrath, on the monkish shades that seem to walk the violated groves, on the melancholy decay, the black wind howling through the shattered
pile, the reeling gothic pillars and walls rent by growing trees',
Extract from George Keate's Elegy on Netley Abbey.

THE CURSE
The curse is said to date from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries when one of the Abbey monks, Blind Peter, became the guardian of the Abbey treasure. It was assumed that all the abbeys had of course secreted away treasure to prevent it falling into the hands of Henry VIII. Blind Peter's ghost
only appears at Halloween.

A gentleman called Mr Slown, is reported to have attempted to find this buried treasure. Arriving at the Abbey with his shovel, he began dig a hole. But moments later he ran screaming from the place. collapsed within minutes from a heart attack, uttering his dying words 'For God's sake, block it up'

The idea of the curse of Netley Abbey may date back to a medieval service of excommunication carried out by the Abbot. Apparently found in a book called 'The Festival' last printed in 1532 is a script of the holy service given in the abbey church. It would appear that four times a year, the Bishop would lead a curse on anyone who offended the monks of Netley Abbey. The Bishop, dressed in white, would stand in the pulpit, lifting his cross, he would read out a list of names i
if malefactors, and then he would lead the curse.

'By the authority of God, Father Almighty, and the blessed Virgin Mary, and all saints, we excommunicate, anathematise, and deliver over to the devil, all the aforesaid malefactors, that excommunicated and anathematised and delivered to the devil they may he. Accursed they be infields, in highways, in foot paths...'

The curse goes on to condemn ail the aforesaid to burn in hell, unless they immediately repent. It was obviously not a good idea to get on the wrong side of the monks of Netley. It is perhaps not surprising that it is the Abbot's Lodging House which inspires most feelings of unease to visitors of the ruins, some of whom complain of a foul and disgusting smell and others insist they have been touched on the shoulder by some long dead hand.

According to the nineteenth century antiquarian, Cuthbert Monk:

'Marvellous tales are told -with what ruin are they not? Of a wonderful sword and the mysterious phantom of the Earl of Southampton who locked in rash and vain intruders of his ancient seat.' This surely relates to the legendary founder of Southampton, Sir Bevis, who not only had a magic sword called Mortglay, but a
giant companion called Ascupart and a beautiful wife known as the Fair Josian. The tales of Sir Bevis were favourite stories of the warrior king, Henry V, who sailed with his fleet past Netley Abbey en-route for Agincourt in 1415. Tales of Sir Bevis can be found in Icelandic sagas which drew upon an Anglo-Norman narrative poem, Boeve de Haumtone, and its first printed version appeared in medieval Venice. The sword can still be seen today by visitors to Arundel Castle where it is known as Mongley a corruption of the Anglo-Norman Morgelei.

LEGENDS
The author of the 'Ingoldsby Legends', the Rev Richard Barham (1788-1845), felt the appetite for Gothic tales had gone too far and hoped with his story of a walled up nun found at Netley Abbey to lay to rest the genre. It was inspired by the discovery of some female human remains uncovered at the ruins.

'And there was an ugly hole in the wall
For an oven too big for a cellar too small.
And I said 'Here's a nun has been playing some tricks"
That horrible hole! It seems to say
I'm a grave that gapes for a living prey!

Ah me, ah me tis sad to think
That maiden's eye which was made to blink
Should here be compelled to grow blear and blink
Or be closed for aye. In this kind of way
Shut out for ever from wholesome day.
Walled up in a hole with never a chink
No light - no air - no victuals - no drink.
That wandering glance and furtive kiss
exceedingly naughty and wrong I wis
Should yet be considered so much amiss
As to call for a sentence severe as this
And I said to myself as I heard with a sigh
The poor lone victims stifled cry
Well I can^t understand how any mans hand
Could wall up that hole in a Christian land'

Perhaps the nun is also the apparition of the grey lady who witnesses
say roams the site. Others insist she carries a parasol and must
therefore be Florence Nightingale who had wandered down from the
nearby Netley Hospital. Barham was a friend of Hook, Dickens and
Thackeray and it was via 'Bentley's Miscellany' edited by Dickens,
which the stories of the Ingoldsby Legends first appeared.

Ode Netley Abbey: Midnight

'Within the sheltered centre of the aisle,
Beneath the ash whose growth romantic spreads
Its foliage trembling o'er the funeral pile,
And all around a deeper darkness sheds;
While through yon arch, where the thick ivy twines,
Bright on the silvered tower the moon-beam shines,
And the grey cloister's roofless length illumes,
Upon the mossy stone I lie reclined,
And to a visionary world resigned
Call the pale spectres forth from the forgotten tombs

But now no more the gleaming forms appear,
Within their graves at rest the fathers sleep;
And not a sound comes to the wistful ear,
Save the low murmur of the tranquil deep:
Or from the grass that in luxuriant pride
Waves o'er yon eastern window's sculptured side,
The dew-drops bursting on the fretted stone:
While faintly from the distant coppice heard
The music of the melancholy bird
Trill to the silent heaven a sweetly-plaintive moan.'

An Extract from the Elegy on Netley Abbey

'Now sunk deserted, and with weeds overgrown,
Yon prostrate walls their awful fate bewail;
Low on the ground their topmost spires are thrown,
Once friendly marks to guide the wandering sail.
The ivy now with rude luxuriance bends
Its tangled foliage, through the cloistered space
O'er the green windows mouldering height ascends,
And fondly clasps it with a last embrace.'

The Sonnet

'Fallen pile! I ask not what has been thy fate:
But when the winds, wafted from the main,
Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain,
Come hollow to my ear, I meditate
On this world's passing pageant, and the lot
Of those who once might proudly in their prime,
Stood smiling at decay, till bowed by time
Or injury, their early boast forgot,
They might have fallen like thee! Pale and forlorn
Their brow, besprent with thin hairs, white as snow
They lift, still unsubdued, as they would scorn
This short-lived scene of vanity and woe
Whilst on their sad looks smilingly they bear
The trace of creeping age and the pale hue of care.'

It was not only the gentlemen who were inspired; the poet Susan Evance (fl 1808-1818), friend of the author Maria Barton, wrote the following sonnet whilst on a visit to the Abbey:

Sonnet Written at Netley Abbey:

'Why should I fear the spirits of the dead?
What if they wander at the hour of night,
Amid these sacred walls, with silent tread,
And dimly visible to mortal sight!
What if they ride upon the wandering gale,
And with low sighs alarm the listening ear;
Or swell a deep, a sadly-sounding wail,
Like solemn dirge of death! Why should I fear?
No! seated on some fragment of rude stone,
While through the Ash-trees waving o'er my head
The wild winds pour their melancholy moan,
My soul, by fond imagination led,
Shall muse on days and years for ever
flown, And hold mysterious converse with
the dead!'

And it has been argued, and who are we to disagree, that the divine Jane Austen was inspired by the Abbey to write her own spoof Gothic novel, Northanger Abbey, whilst on a picnic with her niece Fanny Knight and other members of the Austen clan.

'We all except Grandmama, took a boat and went to Netley Abbey the ruins of which look beautiful. We ate some biscuits we had taken, and returned home quite delighted', wrote young Fanny.

Brush as well as quill served the visitors to Netley. There are dozens of surviving drawings, etchings and paintings surviving from both professional and amateur palettes. Too numerous to mention and record but the highlights must be;

J.M.W.TURNER (1775-1851)
The Ruins of Netley Abbey, with several figures 1795

Turner is rightly acclaimed as one of the finest landscape artists this country has produced. Successful throughout his life he was first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of 15. By the time he was 20 and painting views of Netley Abbey, he was a favourite with print sellers eager to purchase his drawings
for reproduction.

 

FRANCIS TOWNE (1740-1816) - Netley Abbey c 1809
Towne was an expert proponent of the watercolour style of tinted drawings and is considered by many critics to provide the high point of this 18th century tradition. Working in the field, the artist would make a pencil drawing in bound sketchbooks, outlining all the forms, capturing essential details and textures and
noting colour to aid memory later in the studio. Back in the studio the artist would painstakingly draw over the pencil sketch with a reed pen and India or bistre ink.


JOHN CONSTABLE (1776-1837) Netley Abbey c. 1833
Constable is said to have first been inspired by the Abbey whilst visiting
the area on honeymoon. John Constable used an expressive style he described as 'Experiments in natural philosophy' to capture the drama of Netley Abbey. The darkened trees framing the ruins of the gothic arches, hovering birds in a turbulent sky of brown, apricot and dull blue, all serve to intensify the
atmospheric landscape.

FETES CAMPETRES
By mid 19th century the Abbey had become so popular with visitors large events called Fetes Champetres were being organised on a regular basis.

A description of the event in the 1840s records:

'On Mondays, the Fountain Court presents a singular scene of gaiety. It has long been the custom for people from Southampton and the neighbourhood to meet at the Abbey on that day, and to hold a kind of festival. Tea and other provisions are furnished by the inhabitants of a neighbouring cottage, and this is followed by mu^ic and dancing'.

Of course for dancing one needed music and the composer William Sheppard was happy to oblige, penning a Rondo for the piano-forte entitled 'Netley Abbey':

As travel became easier at the end of the 19th century, the Abbey became accessible to the hoi polloi who William Howitt describes as desecrating the ruins with 'their relics of greasy paper, and of shrimps and sardine boxes'.

Eventually in 19ww the then owner of the site, Tankerville Chamberlayne, placed the ruins under the guardianship of the Commissioners of Works. Nikolaus Pevsner praised the ministry's concerned with making the ruins instructive.

'At Netley there is too much to learn and intellectual pleasure have their privileges side by side with visual ones'.

Despite these noble efforts, the Abbey still has the power of romance and continues to inspire writers of the 21st century, as Philip Hoare writes in "Spike Island":

'This gothic vision was captivating: the Abbey seemed able not only to conjure up the past but to invite the creation of a new identity - just as the ruins had reinvented themselves'.

Catherine Morland in "Northanger Abbey":

'As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for the sight of the Abbey....returned in full force, and every bend in the road was expected with solmn awe, to afford a glimpse of its mossy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows'.

THE KING'S NEW MEN
The buildings of Netley Abbey and some of its lands were granted after the Dissolution to Sir William Paulet, then Comptroller of the King's Household. It was Paulet - later created first Marquis of Winchester in the reign of King Edward VI - who had the Abbey buildings converted into a grand and imposing mansion. These works account for the appearance of the south range of the ruins seen on entering the grounds from the main road. Brickwork, doorway and windows are all typical of the Tudor period. The considerable impression that must have been made on those who came to the house can easily be imagined by today's visitors as they pass through the outer doorway into the courtyard (formerly the cloisters). To the right are then the domestic buildings and, ahead, the doorway that led into the Great Hall (formerly the nave of the Church). Very little of the monks' refectory now remains above ground as that was demolished
to create the view to the main entrance to the mansion.

'The possessions of these monks were by the wife killing founder of the Church of England, given away (although they belonged to the public) to one of his court sycophants. Sir William Paulet, a man the most famous in the whole world for sycophancy^ time serving and for all those qualities which usually distinguish the favourite of kings like the wife killer' wrote William Cobbett.

In contrast, a contemporary of Paulet observed:

'As he a subject dutiful Five Kings and Queens did serve
And never from the first to last From truth was found to swerve'.


The Abbey later passed into the hands of the Earl of Hertford, and was assaulted by parliamentarian soldiers during the Civil War; some years after this, it belonged to the Earl of Huntingdon who enjoyed the pleasures of the ruin to the full by turning the nave of the church into a tennis court, the choir into his private chapel, the chapter house into a kitchen and other parts of the Abbey into stables.
By 1700 the Abbey mansion was in the hands of Sir Berkeley Lucy who sold off much of the fabric to the Southampton builder Walter Taylor.

Subsequently, in the eighteenth century, the remaining ruins, ivy clad and with trees springing up within the grounds, attracted writers such as Horace Walpole and poets like Thomas Gray. They found inspiration in the old buildings for their romantic writings while, in 1795, the Rev Richard Warner wrote, as a Gothic story, a thrilling tale of the Abbey in medieval times. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, Fanny Knight, Jane Austen's niece was very moved by her first visit to the Abbey with her aunt.

Guide books came to be written for the benefit of visitors and, in 1860, clearance of stone, rubbish, trees, bushes and mounds of earth from the site created the levelled appearance seen today and revealed some stonework previously hidden from view. Today Netley Abbey is a place in which to wander, to enjoy and to marvel at the skill of the masons who constructed the original buildings some seven hundred and fifty years ago.

THE REFORMATION
The peaceful life of the monks of Netley came to an end in 1536. In 1534, the Act of Supremacy was passed whereby King Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church of England. As a result of this, Thomas Cromwell, the King's Vicar
General sent commissioners to gather information about the religious houses throughout the realm. These findings were used in 1536 to suppress and close all such houses with less than twelve monks or nuns and an income of less than £200 a year. Although the monks of Netley were found to be of 'good religious conversation' that was not enough to save the Abbey. The Abbot, Thomas Stevens, and six out of the seven monks went to Beaulieu where he became the Abbot only to have to surrender that abbey in 1538.

In 1533 the librarian and poet, John Leland received a royal commission "to make a search after England's Antiquities, and peruse the Libraries of all Cathedrals, Abbeys, Priories, Colleges, etc. as also all places wherein Records, Writing and secrets of Antiquity were reposed". His 'Itinerary' is a record of his travels and the notes he made are some of the earliest descriptions of places in England at the end of the Middle Ages.

John LeLand's Itinerary 1535-43 has this entry for Letelege Abbey:

'Scant a mile from the mouth of Hamelrise Creeke lyithe Letelege on the .shore upward in the mayne haven.

Here a late was a great abbay in building of White Monkes'.

Leland never completed his great work and the destruction of institutions like Netley Abbey were thought to have contributed to his mental breakdown. He spent the last two years of his life certified insane.


THE MONKS OF NETLEY
For nearly three hundred years, Netley Abbey was home to monks of the Cistercian Order founded at Citeaux (in Latin, Cistercium), Burgundy at the end of the eleventh century. In the sixth century, St Benedict had introduced, at his monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy, a Rule for the conduct of monks but in the course of the ensuing centuries there were departures from observance of some
aspects of the Rule.

Chapter from the rule of St Benedict:
'Above all this evil practice must he uprooted from the monastery. We mean that without an order from the Abbot, no one may presume to give, receive or retain anything as his own, nothing at all - not a hook, writing tablets or stylus - in short not a single item especially since monks may not have the free disposal even of
their own bodies and wills. For their needs they are to look to the father of the monastery and are not allowed anything which the Abbot has not given or permitted. All things should be the common possession of all, as it is written, so that no one presumes to call anything his own.

But if anyone is caught indulging in this evil practice, he should be warned a first and second time. If he does not amend let him be subjected to punishment.'

The Cistercians desired to return to a strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict and became known as the White Monks because of the colour of the habit they wore.

A description of the Cistercians or White Monks is to be found in 'The Life of Aelred' Walter Daniel written c. 1166:

'... certain monks had come to England from across the sea. These remarkable m,en, famed/or their religious life, were known as White Monks after the colour of their habit, for they were clothed angel like in undyed sheep s wool, spun and woven from the natural fleece. Thus garbed, when clustered together, they look like flocks of gulls and shine as they walk with the very whiteness of snow. They venerate poverty — not the penury that stems from negligence and sloth, but a poverty regulated by voluntary privation, sustained by perfect faith and rendered congenial by the love of God, so strong is the mutual love which binds them that their society is as terrible as an army with banners.'

The Cistercians came to England in 1128 when their first monastery in this country was founded at Waverley near Farnham in Surrey. Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, intended that there should be an abbey at Netley but did not live to see his wish fulfilled, the Abbey being founded in 1239, the year after his death. By 1256, King Henry III had assumed the role of co-founder giving a royal connection to Netley. Cistercian abbeys were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin but Netley was known by the name of St Mary of Edwardstowe (Edward's Place) suggesting a connection with a chapel dedicated to St Edward the Confessor that may have existed on the site before the Abbey was built.

Monks from Beaulieu, an abbey founded by King John, came to Netley to begin the religious life there. They would have found a wooded area that required substantial work to clear it ready for building and all stone needed to construct the Abbey had to be imported as none existed locally.