Abbey’s legacy one of mischievous monks
This month conservationists from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings have been working at the Boxley Abbey site in Sandling.
To be more precise they’ve been working on a large barn, which, apart from a pair of gate pillars and a few walls, is almost all that is left of the abbey, perhaps one of Kent’s most over-looked and forgotten ancient treasures. In its heyday, it played a very important part in the county’s affairs.
It was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1146 by William of Ypres (1090 to 1165), who came to England at the head of a band of mercenaries to fight for King Stephen against Queen Matilda in the English dynastic civil war. William by all accounts was a nasty piece of work, who ruled Kent with a rod of iron on behalf of the king and was certainly heading for hell. The Cistercians promised to intervene with God on his behalf if he built them a monastery.
When Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered on the steps of the cathedral’s altar by Henry II’s knights, it was the abbot of Boxley who was called upon to conduct the funeral service. Likewise, when in 1193 Richard the Lionheart was captured and held hostage in Germany, it was the abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge who were sent to find the imprisoned monarch and negotiate his release.
But unfortunately, the abbey is best known not for these commendable deeds but rather for scandal. The abbey was famous for its Rood of Grace. It was a wooden cross on which the figure of Jesus could be seen to move and sometimes even speak. Pilgrims came from across the country to see the miracle, greatly increasing the abbey’s finances with their donations. In 1537, during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, government inspector, Geoffery Chamber, was dispatched to oversee the closure of Boxley Abbey.
He discovered the miracle was a fake - the cross contained hidden levers and wires that allowed the monks to manipulate it.
The rood was taken down and displayed in Maidstone market to show the people how they had been conned, where, Chamber wrote, the townsfolk “held the matter in such wondrous detestation and hatred so that if the monastery had to be defaced again they would pluck it down or burn it.”
It was subsequently taken to London, where it was ceremoniously hacked to pieces and burnt. The monks had a second attraction for the gullible pilgrims - an effigy of the infant Saint Rumbold. The monks would explain that the statue could only be lifted from its plinth by the truly righteous. The degree of righteousness might be reflected perhaps by the size of their believer’s gift to the church.
Chamber found that there was hidden catch under the statue that the monks could disengage to release it.
After the dissolution, the abbey estate, passed into the hands of Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Over the centuries it has largely been broken up and sold off and the barn is now in the ownership of James Best-Shaw.