They were then expelled from Deepdale and Præmonstratensian monks soon filled their place. John Staunton, last abbot, with 16 monks surrendered the abbey in 1539. A full account of the history of this monastic house was written by one of the monks, and through these manuscripts more particulars can be learned of this abbey than of any other in Derby.
[NEWSTEAD (Augustine Canons)]
1170, Founded by Henry II.—1540, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £167, 16s. 11d.—Demesne granted to Sir John Byron, Lieut. of Sherwood Forest, by Henry VIII.—1818, Sold to Colonel Wildman, who enlarges and restores the abbey.—Again restored.
Just as Buckland Abbey possesses more than an ordinary interest in that it became the home of Sir Francis Drake after the Dissolution, so Newstead Abbey boasts a dual attraction. For besides being imbued with the romance and legendary lore inseparable from monastic houses, it came, after the Dissolution of the monasteries, into the possession of the Byron family, and, passing into the hands of the first Lord Byron (1643), then to the “wicked” Lord Byron (1722-98), it eventually became the home of Lord Byron the poet. Most picturesquely placed on the borders of Sherwood Forest, the Newstead Abbey of to-day takes more the form of a private residence than of a monastic ruin. Its undulating and beautifully wooded grounds, containing two sheets of water, extend over many acres. Very little is known of the early history of the abbey beyond the fact that Henry II. built and endowed it in expiation of the murder of Thomas à Becket, and that King John extended his patronage to the house. The modern attraction that Newstead possesses dates from its coming into the hands of the Byrons. The first owner, Sir John Byron, known as “Little John with the great beard,” adapted a portion of the monastic buildings to a private residence, and in the reign of Charles I. the south aisle of the church was converted into a library and reception room.
With the exception of the exceedingly beautiful west front of Early English workmanship, the rest of the church has been allowed to fall into decay. The house itself, so greatly enriched by the poet Byron, is made up of the various monastic offices. The present grand dining-room was once the refectory of the monks, while the original guest chamber, with its grand vaulting, is now converted into the servants’ dining-hall, and the old dormitory into a drawing-room. No alteration has been made in Byron’s arrangements of the abbot’s apartments. Several rooms are still named after the English monarchs who have at various times slept in them. The chapter-house—a building of remarkable beauty to the east of the cloisters—is now used as a chapel for the convenience of the household and tenantry. Within can be seen some richly stained glass and other features of interest. Newstead passed at Byron’s death into the possession of his friend and colleague Colonel Wildman, who greatly restored it. Sir Richard Phillips, in his Personal Tour, relates that—
“Colonel Wildman was a schoolfellow in the same form as Lord Byron at Harrow School. In adolescence they were separated at college, and in manhood by their pursuits; but they lived in friendship. If Lord Byron was constrained by circumstances to allow Newstead to be sold, the fittest person living to become its proprietor was his friend Colonel Wildman. He was not a cold and formal possessor of Newstead, but, animated even with the feelings of Byron, he took possession of it as a place consecrated by many circumstances of times and persons, and above all, by the attachment of his friend Byron. The high spirited poet, however, ill brooked the necessity of selling an estate entailed in his family since the Reformation (but lost to him and the family by the improvidence of a predecessor), and retiring into Tuscany, there indulged in those splenetic feelings which mark his later writings.”
No more vivid picture of Newstead has been penned than that of Byron’s in the 13th canto of Don Juan—
“To Norman Abbey whirl’d the noble pair,
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion,—of a rich and rare
Mix’d Gothic, such as artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal; it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferred a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind.
“It stood embosom’d in a happy valley,
Crown’d by high woodlands, where the Druid oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally
His host, with broad arms ’gainst the thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters; as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd
To quaff a brook which murmur’d like a bird.
“Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften’d way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed;
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix’d upon the flood.