Exploring the ruins of Netley Abbey!

Hello. Thanks for joining me. Today I'm in Netley in Hampshire. I've just had a pleasant walk along Southampton water from the Royal Victoria Country Park. That's a different video. What we're going to do in today's video is have a look at the ruins of Netley Abbey. It says Netley Abbey there. And if you look across the road, you can just see the Abbey. So, as soon as I know there's cars going, I'm going to get across the road. Just got to wait for bikes to go by. And we're going to go and explore the ruins of Netley Abbey. It's a rather interesting Abbey, one I've always wanted to visit. It's free to visit. Um, it looks like they do lock it up at night. You can't just come here anytime of day. What we see here is actually a Tudor mansion that was built out of the Abbey. So, that's the Tudor mansion we see there. What I'm going to do, I'm going to show you around. We'll have a look at the Abbey and how it was transformed into the Tudor mansion and then the ruin it is today. >> So there you are. That was a bit of history on the monastery. We're now walking into a gateway from the Tudor mansion era. And then we're heading through to what um became a courtyard, originally the cloisters. If you look this way, you can see the brickwork. So that brickwork will be dating from when the monastery was a Tudor mansion. And as I say, all of the facade which we saw out there, looking to where I've just been. Another room here. Again, we can see See those windows? They're very Tudor. If we go through this doorway here, should take us into the corner of the cloisters. Yes, so there we are. And there's the church ahead of us. It's a typical Cistercian church, very big, very grand. Uh it's the most complete Cistercian abbey Oops, face upwards. in England. Or in the south of England, should I say. There's other Cistercian abbeys in Wales like Tintern, which are even more complete. And then you've got ones in Yorkshire, which I've not been to, like Rievaulx Abbey, which are also Cistercian. So I'm looking across Like I say, this was the cloisters, but it later became a courtyard. And just here, I can show you what it looked like. If you look here on this on this board. So there it is as a monastery. So we are just there, looking up towards the church. And that's how it got transformed into a Tudor house, a Tudor mansion. So we we just entered through those gates there, so we could see this facade here. It's pretty much the same, just without a roof. This is a bit more ruined. There's only really the lower story standing. If you look at the church, see how the north transept disappeared? And most of the church became the great hall of the Tudor mansion. So, it really must have been a very spectacular Tudor mansion. This garden here was just grassland. And then in the top corner was the Abbot's lodging. So, we're going to go and have a look around the whole site. I'm just going to zoom out and you can now see the whole thing. You can compare as a monastery and as a mansion house. And then that's where you Sorry about this. Let's just get it to face up. There you go. And there's the church. And you can see the south transept is standing very nicely. And then just in front is the Oh, let's get it right way. Is the chapter house. Let's walk along here. So, we'll have a look at some of these buildings. And then we shall make our way around and up to the church. So, yeah, it really is a rather fantastic ruin. All right. You see ahead of me the the Tudor era parts of the monastery. Looking up that way. As I say, lots of bricks. So, pretty much all the brickwork, I would say, dates to when the monastery um Well, once it's finished being a monastery, then it became a Tudor mansion. Now, unfortunately, we can't go in all of due to falling masonry. They fenced some bits off. Which I suppose puts something a bit more permanent. These bits of Harris fencing, can't say the most attractive looking way of um you know, preserving a historic monastery. And you can see Imagine there must have been a vaulted ceiling in here once. And we look up. And then there This south Transept. Come out here. Again, we can't go in there. What might try and do That's the Abbot's Lodging, by the way. And then this all became a Tudor Garden. Um there's the end of the church over there. We'll We'll do the church properly soon, so don't worry. We are going to do that. That big shadow of a big Gothic window. So, interestingly, there must be a rather large roof space up there um above above this part of the Tudor Mansion. So, let's have a look in here. This This all looks very much dating to the monastic era. You can see the vaulted ceiling. It's a very nice vaulted ceiling. So, we can't actually go in here. I'm just literally poking the camera through the window to show you this. There must be above the vaulted ceiling, like I say, a fair bit of space. I'm intrigued to know See there are some railings. That's possibly what I think they could do. So, there's house fencing. Beyond that railing, I can see there's I'm not going to climb through the window down, but there's a bit of a hole. I'm wondering You sometimes get and this will I'll show you here. These monasteries, you get the old drains. Now, I don't know how obvious it is. I don't mind holding my camera over these things, but down there I can see flowing water. So, it's possibly where the latrine was plumbed into. Let's face the camera up so you can see where the latrine was potentially plumbed into and then it'd have taken it all away by a a stream which is down here. And then it'd have flowed out into Southampton Water. I should think upstream here, they probably had pond I guess I'd say they may have had some fish ponds cuz looking on the map, there are some ponds around here which would be private, so I won't be able to show you those. Looking this way, we can see the monastery ahead of us. Look at that. Rather spectacular. The ruins of Netley Abbey. We're now walking towards the Abbot's Lodging. So, I should have a look in there. So, as I say, in the Tudor area, this all became a garden. We could see that on those pictures. We can go in this one. Unlike where we were just now, where we couldn't go in, it was fenced off due to potential falling masonry. Here, we can just walk straight inside. It's quite a warm day. And it's quite cool in here, in the Abbot's Lodging. Look ahead, another very nice vaulted ceiling. I'm just letting you pop a bit. There we go. Look at that vaulted ceiling. Isn't that great? Another vaulted ceiling on a smaller scale in this part of the Abbot's Lodgings. So, this goes, takes us out here. And uh there's a well there, by the looks of it. Funny how it says, and I'm not going to go climbing, but it says no climbing on possibly the easiest part to climb. But we're we're not going climbing. And now, someone's started up a chainsaw. I think we should go back to the Abbey Church and get away from the noise of the chainsaw. As we come out here, we should get a great view of the eastern window. Look at that. And when I was looking for this place on Street View, or not Street View, um what's it called? Um Google Maps, I could see the shadow cast by the east window quite nicely. In fact, I can show you what I mean. You can see that. See how large the shadow of this window as you can see that. Pretty from very high up. If you ever on a plane taking out taking off from Southampton Airport. I've never flown out of Southampton Airport. If I did, I'd be probably by the window trying to spot Netley Abbey. Looking across, you can see the chapter house. There's the church. I'm promising you I will take you in the church. I like leaving the church till last cuz I think the church is the most spectacular part of a ruined monastery. You know what I was saying? Sometimes there isn't so much of the church left. And another Abbey close to here is Titchfield Abbey. That's a um I think it's a Premonstratensian Abbey. It's certainly not a Cistercian Abbey. And that had a similar life. It eventually became a Tudor mansion. And there is more of the Tudor mansion which you see. There's not really much of the of the Abbey itself left. This is the chapter house here. I'm just going to show you through the windows. I'm going to take you around. You can see the cloister beyond the chapter house. And we should go in the chapter house. Around here. So, once again, general as a general rule, I think any brickwork you see will date back to the Tudor era. It wasn't a typical Tudor half-timbered house. It was a brick and stone mansion. It must have been very grand. Coming into the chapter house here through this side door. So, this is the chapter house. So, there's actually a picture there. Let me show you what it looked like. So, they didn't You can see the monks. They didn't um pray in here. They more just held meetings. So, that's what the chapter house would look like. And most cathedrals today you can still see a chapter house. Sometimes you get circular or hexagonal chapter houses, but this one is a square-shaped chapter house. Here we are in the cloisters. So, like I say, in the Tudor era this became the church became a grand hall. It must have really been a very interesting to have seen. I walked into another room with a another very nice vaulted ceiling. And this was the bookstore. I know that cuz I just read it there. It said they originally separated by a partition. And um clothing and precious objects for the church were stored here. And at the other end of they stored books which the monks used to study. Looking back through I'm just seeing to the chapter house again. And I suppose above the chapter house here is a bit of brickwork dating from the Tudor area. Now as promised, I'll take you into the church. Now we're coming in through the south transept. And it's the south transept which survives quite nicely to full height. So I'll show you that as we make our way out of here. Uh so this is the south transept which I'm currently standing in now. And uh if we That's where we've just been. If we look up the up rather than down, look at that. That's really quite amazing. Look forward now to the east window. So that's where we were a moment ago. That's the one I was saying you could see when we were when we were outside, you could see the shadow cast by that spectacular east window. And uh here, look look at this. This is the base of one of the pillars. Um in fact all four of them have gone. So there's one here, one there, and one there. So imagine this is the grand crossing. And yeah, where the north transept was, well there really isn't anything. That was taken down during the Tudor era. I I some of the some of the masonry from here was taken and a folly was built with it. And this is interesting. It's always a bit in these abbeys where you can't go where I'd really like to go. There's quite a aggressive gate, but if you look through there, can you see? There is a spiral staircase. I thought I could see a spiral staircase while I was out there. So, I expect if we could go up there, we would probably end up going all the way up there, end up maybe on the roof of that, which would be quite spectacular. To to see the view. Imagine the view you'd get of the monastery from up there. More vaulted ceiling. That is looking >> [sighs] >> looking um west along the along the nave of the church. I'm going to take you down the nave of the church, then what we'll do, we'll come out um we'll go around. So, this is so we get the uh view of the monastery. So, this is now heading out of the Well, we're in the middle of the church. It must have been huge. It's the daughter house of Beaulieu Abbey. Interestingly, Beaulieu Abbey um it's also home of the National Motor Museum. There isn't really anything left to see of the um of of the abbey church. There is a few low masonry walls, but certainly nothing as spectacular as what we have here. And Netley, this bit unfortunately is also fenced off, I think, due to falling masonry. Looking back, look at that. That really is quite spectacular. So, I'm very I'm impressed with Netley Abbey. It's somewhere I've always wanted to go to. I really enjoy visiting ruined abbeys. So, still standing in the church looking down towards the spectacular east window. I hope you have enjoyed this tour of Netley Abbey. I hope to do a few more videos in this format exploring ruined abbeys and castles. Um I just love going around ruins. I find them fascinating cuz I like really sort of trying to imagine how it would have been. And like I say, it became a Tudor mansion, so try to imagine how it would have been. It would have had Tudor banquets in here after it had finished its life as a church. So, I hope I've been able to sort of paint that picture to you of what the site would have been like. So, from the main church at Netley Abbey, thank you very much for watching. It is free to come and visit, so do come visit. It's not too far to walk from the railway station. Like I say, I've just been to Royal Victoria Country Park and had a ride on the miniature railway, so you can easily do the two places in one day out. So, thanks very much for watching. And from Church of Netley Abbey, please do feel free to like, share, comment, subscribe. Goodbye.