 Lilleshall Abbey
Arrouasian canons from the ancient minster of Dorchester-on-Thames first settled
in this beautiful part of Shropshire in 1143. They moved to within a
mile of the present site shortly afterwards, but in 1148 a new house
was founded by Richard de Belmeis at Lilleshall Wood. Now absorbed into
the Augustinian Order the monastery was known as Lilleshall Abbey.
Work soon commenced on building
a new abbey in stone and the choir of the church, together with the east
and south ranges, were completed first. Although the west end of the abbey church
was probably completed some 50 years later, the splendid Romanesque work
of the earlier building was copied to give it a typically Norman appearance.
But the decorative work is pure Gothic which, by the early 13th
century, was the modern style of architecture. Sizeable by Augustinian
standards, the abbey church measured some 228ft (69m) in length but had a simple,
aisleless nave with chapels at the east end, and possibly a Lady Chapel
to the north-east where some foundations are still visible. With the exception
of the north transept, the walls of the abbey church have survived to
a good height and many of the doorways and windows show some exceptionally
fine carved detail.
A remarkably ornate survival is the processional doorway at the south-east corner of the nave, leading
into the cloister. For an added touch of evocativeness, when we visited
Lilleshall Abbey during the spring a delicate array of multi-coloured
wild flowers were nestling in clusters atop the capitals, tumbling down
the columns, and adorning the corbels. It was a very pretty sight and
gave a real sense of life to these silent stones that had lain redundant
for almost four centuries.
The walls of the Chapter
House remain almost intact but nothing else has survived to any degree.
Some graves can be seen in this chamber, as this was the usual place
to bury former Abbots of the monastery. It is worth mentioning at this
point that only a partial excavation of the site was carried out in
the 20th century because mining operations by the National
Coal Board resulted in the ruins being supported by 'splints' to sustain
the shock of subsidence.
Notable events during Lilleshall Abbey's lifetime include two visits by King Henry III for hunting expeditions,
and a siege by Parliamentary troops in 1645. Following Lilleshall Abbey's Dissolution
in 1538 the lands were granted to the Cavendish family but they sold onto
James Leveson of Wolverhampton. It was the Leveson family that converted
some of the claustral buildings for use as a family home, and also gave
the 15th century choir stalls from Lilleshall Abbey to be placed
in Wolverhampton parish church.
These majestic ruins, instantly recognisable by the deep red Triassic sandstone from which they were built,
today sit comfortably secluded in their wooded environment at the end of a farm track. |
