The patron saints, under the old régime, had been the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist. St Ethelreda the Virgin was now added, and practically displaced St Mary, whose name is omitted in later descriptions. Another change affected the name of the place, “Mynchen” being often substituted for “Canon”-leigh. “Mynchen” is the old English feminine of “monk,” and therefore equivalent to the modern “nun.”
The indignant canons did not take their extrusion meekly. They appealed to the archbishop, and, through him, to the king, against the usurpation of the “little women,” but they appealed in vain.
Sad to relate, the ladies do not appear to have behaved much better than their predecessors. In 1314 Bishop Stapledon, Quivil’s successor, addressed a letter to his dear daughters in Christ, telling them in Norman-French that he had heard of many deshonestetes, and calling particular attention to the fact that there was an entrance into the cellar where a man brewed le braes, and another under the new chamber of the abbess! These he ordered to be closed by a stone wall before the following Easter.
The abbey was suppressed in February 1538, and at the end of the same year the king granted a lease of the site and precincts, with the tithes of sheaf and the rectories of Oakford and Burlescombe, to Thomas de Soulemont, of London. The inmates, however, were not turned adrift on the charity of the cold world. Each received a pension, and this, in the case of the abbess, Elisabeth Fowell, was considerable. There were eighteen sisters in all, and some of them, as is proved by their names—Fortescue, Coplestone, Sydenham, Carew, Pomeroy—were of good West-country extraction.
In course of time the property passed through various hands, and out of the spoils of the abbey a certain owner appears to have built a mansion, which was demolished in 1821.
From Canonsleigh let us away to Dunkeswell, about equidistant from Culmstock, but in another direction. On the journey we may look again at the grassy plateau which has Culmstock Beacon at one extremity and the Wellington Monument, set up in honour of the Iron Duke and his victories, at the other. This stretch of moorland is yet in its primitive state, and the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, whose property it is, exercise zealous supervision over it. Time was when the villagers depastured their donkeys thereon, but of late years the privilege seems to have been withdrawn.
The Blackdowns, generally, have been enclosed and turned into farms; and although one sometimes stumbles on desolate fields with patches of gorse, mindful of their ancient savagery, this does not affect, to any appreciable extent, the character of the country. On the whole, a ride or walk across the long level chines is not specially delightsome, save indeed for the wholesome air and an occasional glimpse of a fairy-like mappa mundi spread out at their base. It is only when one descends into charming little villages, like Hemyock, or Dunkeswell, or Broadhembury, with their orchards fair and hollyhocks, that complete satisfaction is attained, and then it is attained.
Amidst so much that is bare (and on this subject we have not said our last word) the ivied ruins of Dunkeswell Abbey, nearer Hemyock than Dunkeswell village, and lending its name to a very respectable hamlet, assuredly deserve remark. Situated in a charmingly secluded spot, they consist merely of parts of the gatehouse and fragments of walls. The latter have a blackened appearance as if the destruction of the buildings had been accelerated by fire; more probably, however, this is due to the mould of age. In its heyday the abbey boasted an imposing range of buildings, the outlines of which may still be traced in the grass, when, in the drought of summer, it withers, more rapidly than elsewhere, over the foundations.
The history of the abbey is almost as scanty as its remains. It was founded in 1201 by William Lord Briwere or Bruere, on land that had previously belonged to William Fitzwilliam, who, having borrowed from one Amadio, a Jew, was compelled to mortgage his manor of Dunkeswell. According to one version, Briwere redeemed the land from the Hebrew, but a charter of King John shows the vendor to have been Henry de la Pomeroy. There is clearly a tangle. Possibly Pomeroy bought Dunkeswell from the mortgagee and resold it to Briwere, who, in any case, bestowed it on the Cistercians of Ford.
Just outside the north wall of the modern church may be seen a stone coffin, with depressions for the head and heels. It is one of two that were discovered some thirty years ago covered with plain Purbeck slabs, and containing skeletons—a man’s and a woman’s; in all likelihood, those of the powerful Lord Briwere and his good lady. The body of the founder, it is known, was laid to rest in 1227 in the choir of the abbey church; and it is only natural to suppose, though there is no evidence to prove it, that husband and wife shared a common tomb. The bones, placed together in one of the coffins, were reinterred, while the other coffin, as I said, has been suffered to remain above-ground, a gazing-stock for posterity.