Ruined landmarks offer glimpse into county’s history
Many of the ruins across Nottinghamshire offer an insight into the history, politics and people who lived here centuries ago. GURJEET NANRAH lists some of the well-known ruins found across the county that make for great places to explore today
MANY castles, abbeys, and priories from centuries ago were built in Nottinghamshire but today lie in ruins.
Years of neglect or deliberate demolition has led to these partially remaining today in states where it is clear these landmarks have seen better days.
From Newark Castle to Rufford Abbey, ruins are found all over Nottinghamshire today and make for great and unique locations to visit.
Newark Castle
King John’s Palace
In King’s Clipstone near Mansfield, you will find the ruins of King John’s Palace - the remains of a former medieval royal residence.
Also known as the “King’s Houses”, it is not known how or when the building became associated with King John as he only spent a total of nine days here.
The earliest reference to the King’s Houses dates back to 1164 during the reign of King Henry II (1154–1189). The first period of significant building work occurred between 1176 and 1180.
It first appeared as “King John’s Palace” in 1774, on John Chapman’s Map of Nottinghamshire.
After the death of Richard II, the site was maintained but not visited by the Lancastrian kings, and fell out of use during the Wars of the Roses. It was described as a ruin in 1525 but during its heyday, the site was associated with a large deer park and fish pond.
Newark is positioned at the point where the River Trent intersects with the historic Fosse Way, an important Roman and medieval road that ran between Exeter and Lincoln.
Despite the road briefly having acted as the Roman frontier during the first century AD, the site doesn’t seem to have been fortified during this period.
However, in the late fifth or early sixth century AD, the area was became incorporated into the Kingdom of Mercia.
At the time of the Norman Conquest, Newark was seen by the invaders as a strategic communications node as well as one that could provide a lucrative income from taxation.
Therefore, around 1073, Robert Bloet, Bishop of Lincoln established an earth and timber motteand-bailey castle enclosing the earlier manor house within its defences.
The castle was replaced by the stone fortification seen today
Rufford Abbey took a century to complete. It was one of the first to fall in the Dissolution of the Monastries.
between 1133 and 1148 by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln.
In 1547, following the English Reformation, the castle was taken into Crown control and subsequently passed through numerous owners including William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Exchequer to Elizabeth I).
The castle seems to have been ruinous when he took ownership and he commenced some repairs restoring it back into a residence.
More than a century later after three sieges during the Civil War, the majority of the earthworks surrounding the town were flattened and Newark Castle was slighted by order of Parliament in 1648. The latter was subsequently left as an abandoned ruin until the nineteenth century when efforts were made at restoration.
The castle came into the ownership of the corporation of Newark in 1889 but today still stands as a facade with only one of its walls intact.
Rufford Abbey
The ruins of a remarkable 12th century Nottinghamshire abbey sit on the edge of Sherwood Forest and was one of the first in the country to be converted into a country estate.
Rufford Abbey, near Ollerton, was once the home of Cistercian monks arriving from Yorkshire under the orders of Gilbert de Gant (1126 – 1156), 1st Earl of Lincoln, who ran a similar monastery called Rievaulx
Abbey. The abbey, where work started in 1160 and took a century to complete, was one of the first to fall in the Dissolution of Monasteries in 1536 when Henry VIII sought to rid the nation of Catholic influence and become the Head of the Church of England.
A serious fire at the abbey later in the 16th century damaged much of the original structure.
Beauvale Priory
In between Hucknall and Underwood is Beauvale Priory which was founded in 1343 by Nicholas de Cantilupe, one of nine priories to be built in England dedicated to the Carthusian Order of monks.
The monks lived a silent life at Beauvale for 200 years until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when they refused to sign the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging Henry VIII as the head of the Church.
This building was substantial and the best-preserved structure of the Beauvale site. It is commonly referred to as the prior’s house. Inside can be seen two fire-places and the void left from where a spiral stair-case has been at one time.
For nearly two hundred years the Carthusians led their lives at the priory with little contact with the outside world.
Life at Beauvale was far from comfortable and it was a struggle to survive. The Carthusians were known as ‘Christ’s poor men.’
Well before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the monastery is described in the Etwall Charter as in a ‘ruinous’ state and again in a second Etwall Charter in 1370, it can be read that the building ‘in aid of their sustentation and of the reparation of their priory, which is said to be ruinous.’ Time doesn’t seem to have improved matters. In 1413, an extract from the Beauvale Cartulary reads: “They had nothing in treasure, or movable goods wherewith to stock their pasture, pay their debts, or relieve their necessity”.
Mattersey Priory
In north Nottinghamshire close to Retford are the remains of mainly the 13th-century refectory and kitchen, of a small monastery for just six Gilbertine canons. The priory of St Helen stands on a gravel island on the west side of the River Idle, in what was marshland in the Middle Ages.
It was established in 1185 by Roger Fitzralph of nearby Mattersey for the Gilbertine Order, the only monastic order to have originated in England.
St Gilbert founded the order at Sempringham, Lincolnshire, between 1131 and 1148, originally for women, but with lay sisters and brothers and canons to serve the spiritual needs of the community.
There were 26 Gilbertine monasteries, but only 11 housed both nuns and canons. Mattersey was a house of canons only, and its layout is similar to that of monasteries of the Augustinian Order, whose modified rule the canons adopted.
The remains date mainly from the late 13th century as the original monastery was destroyed by fire in 1279.