Society of Bexhill Museums

The subject, Fountains Abbey Then And Now, illustrated the grandeur of this Cistercian monastery, located in the splendid setting of the Yorkshire Dales.

This vast ruin, a World Heritage Site, is an impressive place which was shown to great advantage by Barbara Echlin's many photographs.

We learned how Archbishop Thurston of York granted land south-west of Ripon for the establishment of an abbey in 1132 and how this became the great power of the area.

It was one of the first monasteries to be taken by the King's Commissioners at the Dissolution in 1539, due to its great wealth.

The Cistercian orders are associated with water, their name being derived from 'swampy place' so their buildings are to be found close to rivers and streams.

They were skilled in water engineering and utilised this natural power source.

Fountains' well-kept ruins show how vast this establishment was, with accommodation for hundreds of industrious lay brothers whose labours were required to bring prosperity to the Dales in the form of sheep in their thousands for the all-important wool trade.

As can be seen from the large fish ponds which still remain, the raising of fish, so important for the monks' diet, was another skill.

We were introduced to the 'possible and probable' when exploring areas around the ruined abbeys, such as Fountains.

Interesting slides showed how existing buildings have stonework incorporated which may have been part of the granges - abbey farmsteads of 50-100 acres, or Fountains Abbey itself.

Such detective work in the beautiful north of England would appear to be an interesting enterprise.

This could be done in our own locality as we were shown examples of monastic ruins such as St Pancras Priory at Lewes, Bayham Abbey and Robertsbridge Abbey.

Although not on the scale of Fountains Abbey and other large establishments in the north, these ruins show how extensive were these monastic communities before Henry VIII changed the landscape so brutally.

The new season of museum lectures at St Augustine's starts on January 7, 2009, when Dr Peter Marsden's subject will be Local Shipwrecks.