The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

In the churchyard, plainly traceable by the ruined foundations, and mounds, and depressions, are the sites of the lavatory and kitchens, whilst in the fields beyond lie the fish-ponds. Everywhere, in fact, are seen the traces of the monks. Their walks still remain by the side of the Exe, overgrown with oaks, bright in the spring with blue and crimson lungwort, and sweet with violets, such as grew when Anne Beauchamp sought refuge here that dismal Easter day.

Not only do the Abbey grounds,[96] but the whole district, show the size of the monastery. Going out of Beaulieu, upon the road to Bucklershard, we come upon the ox-farm of the monks, still called Bouvery, and still famous for its grazing land. A little farther, about the centre of their various farmsteads, at St. Leonard’s, better known now as the Abbey Walls, stands part of the large barn, or spicarium, of the monastery, such as still remains in other parts of England—at Cerne Abbey, and Abbotsbury, and Sherborne, and Battle Abbey.[97] A modern barn now stands within it, partly formed by its walls, but its original size is well shown by the lofty eastern gable, locally called the Pinnacle, which, covered with ivy, overhangs the road. Close to the old farm-house, built from its ruins, stands a small roofless Decorated Chapel. The west window, and the arch of the west doorway, still remain, and at the same end still project the corbels which supported the gallery. In the east wall are canopied niches, under which stood figures; and on the south the piscina, and the broken conduit where the water ran, and two aumbries are still visible, whilst opposite to them, in the present doorway, another aumbrie is inserted with its two grooves for shelves cut in the stone.[98]

The Barn of St. Leonard’s Grange.

The Chapel of St. Leonard’s Grange.

Close to St. Leonard’s lies also the sheep-farm of the monks, still called Bargery, and still famous for its sheep-land. Nearer Bucklershard is Park Farm, another grange, where fifty years ago stood a chapel, smaller even than the one we have just seen, partly Early-English and Decorated. It was divided into two compartments by a stone screen reaching to a plain roof. The piscina in the south wall was finally used by the ploughmen to mix their wheat with lime, until the whole building was pulled down to enlarge the farm-house from whose south-east end it projected.[99]

At these two granges the brethren worked in summer from chapter till tierce, and from nones till vespers. Here lived the ploughmen and artisans, the millers, and smiths, and carpenters, of the monastery. For them were these chapels built, lest either the weather or the roads might prevent them going to the Abbey Church.[100] Here they all worshipped as one family, the serf no longer a serf, but a freedman, when he entered the service of the abbey.

Farther away to the westward lies Sowley Pond, called in the Abbey Charters Colgrimesmore, and Frieswater, covering some ninety acres, formerly the boundary of the abbey estate, and used by the monks as a preserve for their fish. Here once were iron-works, whose blast-furnaces were heated with wood and charcoal from the Forest. The iron-stone was brought from Hengistbury Head and the Hordle Cliffs, and after being melted was shaped by the tilt-hammers, and finally sent off inland to Reading, or shipped at Pitt’s Deep. But like all the other ferraria of Sussex and Hampshire, these too have long since been stopped, driven out of the field by the Staffordshire iron-works. Nothing now remains to tell their former importance but a few mounds and the village Forge-Hammer Inn, and a country proverb, “There will be rain when Sowley hammer is heard,” whose meaning is fast being lost.

Returning, however, to Beaulieu, let us once more look at the old abbey and the ruins of the cloisters, and try to imagine for ourselves the time when, secluded from the world, in the midst of the New Forest, the monks from Citeaux prayed and worked, clad in their coarse white woollen robes, and slept, according to their vow, on pallets of straw, giving shelter to the fugitive, and food to the hungry.[101] It is only by seeing some such grey ruins as these, still breathing of a long past religion, placed amongst the solitude of their own green meadows and woods, by the silent lapse of some stream flowing and ebbing with every tide, that we can at all understand the meaning of a life of contemplation, and its true value. Along these cloisters paced the brethren, their eyes bent on the earth, their thoughts on heaven. Here tolled the great abbey-bell, its sound, full of solemn sweetness, borne not only over the lonely Forest, but down the river seaward to the tossing sailor. Here was that comfort, which could never fail, offered to the most desolate, and heaven itself, as a fatherland, to the exile. Here the great gate not only rolled back the noise of the world, but, to show that mercy is ever better than vengeance, stayed the hand of the law, and blunted the sword of the pursuer.