Ramsey Abbey

Ramsey Abbey
Remains of the abbey gatehouse
Location	Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, England
Coordinates	52°26′54″N 0°06′03″W
Area	Huntingdonshire
Founded	969
Built	10th–16th centuries
Demolished	1537
Scheduled monument
Official name	Ramsey Abbey (remains of)
Reference no.	1006838
Location of Ramsey Abbey in Cambridgeshire

Ramsey Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Ramsey, Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire), England. It was founded in AD 969 and dissolved in 1537.

The site of the abbey in Ramsey is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Most of the abbey's buildings were demolished after the dissolution. Parts of a few buildings survive, and are now Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings.

The Abbey

Ramsey Abbey was founded in 969 by Saint Oswald, Bishop of Worcester through the gift of a local Earl, Ailwyn or Æthelwine. The foundation was part of the mid-10th century English Benedictine reform, in which Ely and Peterborough were also refounded. It paid 4,000 eels yearly in Lent to Peterborough Abbey for access to its quarries of Barnack limestone.

This Ramsey Psalter of c. 1310 was a gift to the abbot from the cellarer (facsimile)

The important Ramsey Psalter or Psalter of Oswald (British Library) appears to have been made for Ramsey Abbey around 980. This is not to be confused with another Ramsey Psalter in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (MS M. 302), made between 1286 and 1316.

Æthelwine at the suggestion of Saint Oswald, Bishop of Worcester founded a small hermitage for three hermits with a wooden chapel, at a location indicated by a bull, on a narrow peninsula of gravel called Bodsey, with impassible fen on three sides. Impressed by the story Oswald sent a Prior from Westbury (Germanus) and 12 monks to form the Abbey , on the Island of Ramsey. From 969, a large stone-built church 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 , connected by arches stretching from one to another in turn, so that they would not loosen and fall down. This remained until a Norman abbot had a grander church built in the 12th century.

In 1143 Geoffrey de Mandeville expelled the monks, used the abbey as a fortress and considerably damaged the buildings.

An effigy of Ailwyn/Æthelwine dating from 1230 is thought to be within the Abbey.

In the order of precedence for abbots in Parliament, Ramsey was third after Glastonbury and St Alban's.

The abbey was an international centre of Hebrew scholarship in the late Middle Ages. It prospered until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537. At the time of the Dissolution there were 34 monks.

In 1787 Mark Noble noted:

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 387 hides 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.

After the Dissolution

In 1540 the Crown sold the abbey lands to Sir Richard Williams (alias Cromwell). He used most of the abbey buildings as a source of stone for walls and cottages at hand, and to provide good Barnack stone for new buildings. He had part of the abbey gatehouse dismantled and re-erected at Hinchingbrooke House. Much stone was taken to Cambridge to build Gonville and Caius, King's and Trinity colleges. Stone was taken for the tower for the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in Godmanchester. 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 own parish church of St Thomas a Becket was also taken from the Abbey.

Ramsey Abbey House, remodelled in 1804–06 by Sir John Soane

Around 1600 Sir Henry 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.

In 1737 Coulson Fellowes, later MP for Huntingdonshire, bought the house. It passed down through several generations of the family. In 1804–06 William Henry Fellowes had the abbey house enlarged to designs by Sir John Soane. In 1889 his sone Edward Fellowes was created 1st Baron de Ramsey. In 1931 at the coming of age of John Ailwyn Fellowes, 4th Baron de Ramsey the family moved its seat to Abbots Ripton Hall. In 1937 the Fellowes leased the building for 99 years to Ramsey Abbey School. In 1952 Ailwyn Fellowes, 3rd Baron de Ramsey gave the gatehouse to the National Trust in memory of his sister Diana Broughton.

Surviving buildings and artefacts

Ramsey Abbey Censer and Incense Boat, early to mid 14th-century, in the V&A Museum, London

Ramsey Abbey House, the Gatehouse, and the parish church of St Thomas a Becket all survive, along with part of the abbey's Medieval precinct wall.

Ramsey Abbey House, the former 17th century home of Sir Henry Cromwell and latterly the seat of the Fellowes family, is currently part of Abbey College.

The Abbey Gatehouse is a National Trust property. This is believed to be an inner gatehouse, the main outer gatehouse was removed by the son and heir of Sir Richard (Sir Henry Williams (alias Cromwell)) to form the main gateway to Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon, his newly built winter residence. Today what remains of the gatehouse also forms a part of the Abbey College.

The Church of St Thomas a Becket, Ramsey was built in about 1180 or 1190 as either the hospitium 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 the parish church in about 1222.

When Whittlesey Mere was drained, a thurible 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. The thurible (or censer), and an incense boat are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Also found in the bed were blocks of quarried stone, that are conjectured to have fallen from a barge on the way to the Abbey.

Burials

• Saint Felix of Burgundy, whose remains were publicly displayed as relics
• Ivo of Ramsey who gave his name to St Ives, Huntingdonshire

Abbots

The names of abbots from AD 993 onwards are known. Notable among them are:

• Eadnoth the Younger, who was also Bishop of Dorchester, and was killed at the Battle of Assandun in 1016
• Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, who died in 1119
• Walter, abbot from 1133-1161, during the reign of Stephen and the invasion of Ramsey by Geoffrey de Mandeville, first Earl of Essex.

References

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public 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. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Lapidge, Michael, ed. (2009). "Ramsey in the Time of Byrhtferth". Byrhtferth of Ramsey: The Lives of St Oswald and St Ecgwine. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. xv–xxix. ISBN 978-0-19-955078-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Page, WH; Proby, Granville (eds.); Norris, HE (1926). A History of the County of Huntingdon. Victoria County History. Vol. 1. London: St Catherine Press. pp. 377–385. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Pevsner, Nikolaus (1968). Bedfordshire and the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 330–334. ISBN 0-14-0710-34-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• RCHME, ed. (1926). An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Huntingdonshire. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 204–211. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• "History of Ramsey Abbey". Clive Beeke.
• "Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse". National Trust.