The Augustinian Abbey of St Mary the Virgin
at Kenilworth

Text by Geoff Hilton ( section 5. first published in KH 2001-02 and reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor ).
Produced by the   Kenilworth History & Archaeology Society   as part its Educational Programme.

Contents of this webpage:-

          1.   Abbey History

          2.   Abbey Manuscripts

          3.   Abbey Life Today

          4.   The Kenilworth Abbey Advisory Committee

          5.   The Romantic Ruins of the Abbey and the Castle

References to ‘KH’ on this webpage are to the Magazine of the Kenilworth History & Archaeology Society ‘Kenilworth History’ which publishes articles about the latest research by members and others.   Issues can be consulted in Kenilworth Library.

1. Abbey History

          The great medieval abbey of St Mary once dominated Abbey Fields in the heart of Kenilworth, Warwickshire.

          A house of Augustinian canons was founded as a Priory by Geoffrey de Clinton in 1119 and dedicated to St Mary the Virgin.   The Abbey Seal, ilustrated above, shows her sitting on the roof of the abbey church, charter in hand.   The canons were fully ordained priests who lived in a monastic community and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

          It became one of the richest monasteries in Warwickshire and its importance was recognised by the Pope, who raised it to the status of Abbey in 1447.   Its abbey church was twice as long as the Parish church of St Nicholas, hidden behind it.

          Kings and Queens staying at the Castle would have come here for Mass and nobles would have been betrothed here.   John of Gaunt held the Castle as his Palace, yet had his dance floor erected in the Priory for Christmas 1379!   Chaucer may well have come here with his master.   King Henry V and his knights who fought at Agincourt would have come here and met the Priory historian John Strecche,  who wrote down their vivid stories of the French campaigns.

          In 1538 Simon Jeykes, the last Abbot, was forced to surrender his Abbey to King Henry VIII.   He received a pension of £100: his 15 canons received £5 to £8.   The King’s commissioners took all its possessions and the lead off the roofs.   The canons’ carved choir stalls and other woodwork, and the library books, were burnt to stoke the furnaces which melted the lead into half-tonne fodders.

          The buildings were then plundered for stone: large ashlar blocks of red sandstone can be seen all over Kenilworth, often forming walls, or the foundations of houses.   Angled corner stones were taken from the bell tower to Idlicote and built into a similar tower or dovecote.   One canon’s stall survives in Halford Parish church.   Queen Mary presented fodders of lead to Rowington church for their north aisle.   But one lay buried in St Nicholas’ churchyard until dug up in Victorian times.   It is now in the Parish church.   Perhaps a thief was unable to recover his weighty treasure.

          One building remains intact, albeit with an Elizabethan new roof.   Recent research indicates that it may have been the Prior’s Hall.   It became a farmer’s barn and cattle were kept in it.   It is now The Barn Museum, housing an exhibition conjuring up the life and buildings of the former abbey, and a Kenilworth Local History museum.

Sunley,H. and Stevens,N. ‘Kenilworth: the Story of the Abbey’ The Pleasaunce Press, 1995,    2^nd edition 2007, obtainable from Kenilworth Books ( formerly Browsers), Talisman Square, Kenilworth.

Victoria County History of Warwickshire in Libraries and

On-line:-

          http://british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=36499

          Pictures of the Abbey on   www.celcat.com/kworth

2. Abbey manuscripts

          Most of the Library was probably burnt in the furnaces to melt the lead off the roofs.   Only the Cartulary, a Missal and four library books survive.

The Missal:-

Now a treasured possession of Chichester Cathedral.   Written for the Prior of Kenilworth about 1270.   It includes a prayer for St Richard and an Order for a Betrothal ceremony, shown here, presumably for nobility at the Castle.         The marginal triangle contains a vital sentence the copyist missed out.   Hence the penitent Cannon at the foot of the triangle !         See KH 2008-09 Hilton, G. 'The Kenilworth Missal’.

History of the first Crusade:-

          Now in the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin.   A graphic account of the horrors of warfare, and the grace of God, in the Near East.

See KH 2005-06 Denny, H. ‘A Kenilworth Preserve in Berlin’ and Hilton, G. ‘A Guide to the Gesta Francorum’.

Medieval texts on Astronomy and related subjects:-

          Now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.   12 manuscripts bound as one, including texts about geometry, music, astrology and astronomy, with practical exercises for the canons to calculate the height of buildings (and hence the altitude of stars).

See KH 2006-07 Brock, D. ‘A Bequest to Kenilworth Abbey Library’ and KH 2007-08 Brock, D. ‘Measurement Manuals in Kenilworth Abbey Library’

History of England by John Strecche, and a miscellaneous collection, mainly by  Strecche:-

          Now in the British Library.   A history from the Trojan War to the death of Henry V by a Canon of Kenilworth, probably written to teach his novices.   The Collection includes Aesop’s fables, a treatise on poetry and Wiriker’s ‘Mirror for Fools’.

See KH 2001-02 Jackson, B. and Hilton, G. ‘The Chronicle of John Strecche’

and Hilton, G. 2004 ‘John Strecche Canon of Kenilworth: the Life and Times of a Medieval Historian’ obtainable from Kenilworth Books ( formerly Browsers), Talisman Square, Kenilworth, also On-line with Google Books.

On-line:-

          the British Library Description of the contents of Additional Manuscripts 35295 and 38665  on  www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/INDEX.asp

          Life and times of John Strecche:-   www.kenilworth-uk.co.uk/strecche

3. Abbey Life Today

          In spite of the ruination of their Abbey, the Canons bequeathed more than they could have realised to future generations in Kenilworth.

          The Abbey ruins lie about 150 metres from Bridge Street, partly within the churchyard of St Nicholas and mainly within the open spaces of Abbey Fields.

          The Abbey Fields, some 27 hectares in area, are managed by Warwick District Council as a Public Space, scheduled as an Ancient Monument.   Most of the space is grassland, with a lake, swimming baths, tennis courts and a children’s play area.   Voluntary work such as hedgerow regeneration and litter picking is done by the Friends of Abbey Fields.   The Kenilworth History & Archaeology Society maintain and staff The Barn Museum on summer Sunday afternoons, with invaluable help from members of other Kenilworth organisations.
It welcomes more than 3500 visitors a year and works with local Schools.

          An Abbey Interpretation Scheme for the Millennium resulted in an exhibition in The Barn (Prior’s Hall) Museum, 13 brown explanatory marker plaques on walls or in the turf, and a historical leaflet on card.   The scheme was funded by Warwick District Council, Kenilworth Town Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

          In June 2003 the first Communion Service since 1538 was held on the site, and other church services have been held since.

On-line:-

          Friends of Abbey Fields - www.friendsofabbeyfields.deman.co.uk

          Kenilworth History & Archaeology Society – http://midwarks.info/khas

          St Nicholas Parish Church – http://stnicholaskenilworth.org.uk/history.htm

4. Kenilworth Abbey Advisory Committee

          This Committee consists of representatives of stakeholders in the Abbey and its fields.   It meets two or three times a year to examine the state of the ruins and make recommendations to Warwick District Council about their upkeep.   The Annual General Meeting at the beginning of the year is open to the public.

Committee Composition:-

                         Warwick District Council (2 Officers)

                         The Parochial Church Council (2 members)

                         Kenilworth Town Council  (2 Councillors)

                         Friends of Abbey Fields  (2 members)

                         The Kenilworth Society  (2 members)

                         Kenilworth History & Archaeology Society  (2 members)

                         Kenilworth Schools/other educational (2 representatives)

                         The Member of Parliament (ex-officio)

                         Co-opted members as needed.

          The Committee has raised money:-
in the 1970s £20 000 to consolidate the Abbey Gatehouse, and in the 1990s funds to install a first floor in The Barn.

          In 2005 it produced a Conservation Plan for Abbey Fields, which can be consulted in Kenilworth Library, or purchased on CD-rom from the Secretary   (tel.01926-512406, or address from the Library).   The Plan is first being implemented by measures to open the Gatehouse to the public, requiring a sound waterproof roof and installation of a north door in a blocked doorway.   Funds are being sought to do this.

On-line:-

          Kenilworth Town Council   www.kenilworthweb.com

5. The Romantic Ruins of Kenilworth Abbey and Castle

          The Abbey and Castle of Kenilworth were visited by Kings and Queens and the Knights of yore.   They now lie in ruins, evoking the spirits of their famous writers, Sir Walter Scott for the Castle and Canon John Strecche for the Abbey.

          In the 16^th century Kenilworth Abbey was merely a source of building stone, and in the 17^th century Kenilworth Castle was a threat to the Parliamentarians, so both became neglected ruins.   In the 18^th century, the improvement of agriculture and conversion of woodland reduced the fear of untamed Nature and led to a romantic appreciation of her works.   Her power to reclothe and adorn the wastes made by human beings was admired by artists, poets and writers.   Nowhere was this power more apparent than among the ruins of medieval abbeys and castles.

          Kenilworth was already kindling the romantic spirit by 1814, when an account of the Castle began ‘In contemplating the bold fragments and shattered ruin, the mind is at once fully occupied and delighted: visions of romance flit before the imagination and we are liable to confound the creation of fancy with the evidence of facts’.

          The creations of fancy reached their heights in Sir Walter Scott’s novel ‘Kenilworth’ where he extends the life of Amy Robsart by fifteen years to go secretly to the Castle, where she never set foot, and to confront Queen Elizabeth, whom she never met.   Scott laments the ruin of the Castle: ‘Of this lordly palace where princes feasted and heroes fought, now in the bloody earnest of storm and siege, and now in games of chivalry where beauty dealt the prize which valour won, all is desolate.   He concludes with a homily, of which his Calvanistic father would have approved, ‘The massy ruins only serve to show what their splendour once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the transitory value of human possession, and the happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment’.

          Scott’s novel made Kenilworth Castle a shrine for pilgrims, especially when it became accessible by railway travel: ‘the seer of Abbotsford with his magic pen awoke its ancient echoes and repeopled its ruins’.   The people are not only the imaginary ones of the novel, but also the real ones of the age of tourism: they delighted in the trees springing from its broken walls and the festoons of ivy darkening every entry.

          If ivy was an accessory to the mystery and romance of a ruined castle, it was essential to a ruined abbey, where an exquisite gloom was needed to imagine the wandering spirits of dispossessed monks returning to their cloisters.   Of Tintern Abbey it was said ‘ Everywhere is the beautiful ivy that lends grace to decay.   The roof is gone and the blue heaven takes its place, and the green mossy carpet spreads beneath our feet.   Dedicated to God as these ruins once were, they are now an awful record of man’s neglect and long-lost sense of perfection’.

          Trees, and especially ferns, added to the picturesque scene.   Anne Radcliffe wrote of Furness Abbey in 1795 ‘No spade has dared to level the inequalities which fallen fragments have occasioned in the ground, or shears to clip the wild fern and underwood that overspread it.   Every circumstance conspires to prolong the luxurious melancholy that it inspires’.

          The inhabitants of Kenilworth made such a thorough job of quarrying their abbey for building stone that little remains, and no poet or novelist came to proclaim its charms.   However, we are fortunate that John Strecche, one of its 15^th century Canons, wrote a History of England in which he included chapters about what was then the Priory.   From these we can conjure up the beauty of its buildings and the measured life of its Canons.

          Tourists awakened a new respect for the ruins and an interest in their history and construction.   Alarm about their continuing decay made the 20^th century notable for clearing vegetation, conserving the stonework and interpreting the ruin to the public.   Has this more disciplined approach, with its mortared stonework and mown grass robbed us of the romance of our ruins?   Could the 21^st century permit us just a hint of the picturesque?   Wordsworth at Furness Abbey wrote: