Bayham Old Abbey
Our second site of that showery Sunday was Bayham Old Abbey. We had no idea this place even existed but we were so glad that we accidentally came across it. This reminded us of our trip to Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, just a happy accident between places that turned out to be one of the grandest ruins we'd seen.
Our first Premonstratensian abbey, this was another religious site that suffered at the hands of the Big Bully King, Henry VIII. The remnants of the abbey were made into a landscape feature for the new Bayham Abbey Mansion Park and are now a free to enter site for the English Heritage, however volunteers have to be on site in order to open the gates.
Bayham Old Abbey is on the Kent/Sussex border and so just about features in our local adventure series as it is on the cusp of both counties. The abbey was believed to have entrances for both areas, although only the Kent entrance remains as the gatehouse at the very far end of the site. No evidence survives of the Sussex gatehouse.
The abbey was founded when two monasteries were merged by Robert of Thurnham. Brockley from Kent and Otham from Sussex combined to make Bayham and Premontre Abbey in France became Bayham's mother church. The canons here followed the life of ascribed to St Augustine of Hippo, not the same Augustine as he of Canterbury (although the two have been regularly confused over the centuries), and continued to do so until 1525 when Cardinal Wolsey supressed the abbey resulting in a riot and this then later led to the Big Bully King getting his hands on the property in 1538. The site was leased out until his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I sold it. In 1714 the Pratt family took ownership and it stayed in the family until it was given to English Heritage.
This is quite an expansive site and had lots to look at. It was peaceful and had a little bookshop in the Dower House, Lauren even managed to score herself one of her wooden keyrings that she's collecting from each recognised site. The most fascinating aspect of this property however is not the ruins per say, but the tree growing out of a section of the nave, or at least we think its the nave. It's an unusual spectacle, but a beautiful site and Jamie was really taken by it.
The Kent gatehouse was made into a summerhouse following the dissolution of the abbey, but this is also ruinous. You are able to see out onto the bridge that leads back into Kent but this has fallen into disrepair and is fenced over to prevent further issues until it can be restored.
We had a really nice time wandering through the ruins of Bayham Abbey. Families were having picnics and kids were running around. It was super sunny at that point of the day as well, and we didn't get any bad vibes or inklings of ghostly monks wandering around. The site was picturesque and one we'd love to go back to just to drink it all in. It was our favourite of all the sites we visited on the first weekend of our local adventures and one we will cherish in the same adoration as Byland with its grand arches.
Bayham also had grand arches still in tact and a set of them which lined up for a great picture. These doorway placements were clever and we loved the fact they were all symmetrical. Not to mention the intact sections that towered above us.
No doubt there were burials here, but without excavation or further knowledge of the site, it is likely none of the dead would be named. The order who were housed here would likely have buried their own on the site, and we know that also the Pratt/Camden family used the site for infant burials as well. It isn't recorded if wealthy families from nearby areas used the site for burial of their dead, as was trusted with certain families for Otham Abbey, but there wasn't any memorials or obvious areas for those laid to rest.
We wouldnt have said the site was haunted as we didnt detect the slightest hint of negativity at all, would it have been the same in the dark? Well it may have been a different story. There's bound to be something after all.
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