With only a few days left before it’s seasonal closure, autumn is a great time to visit the hidden gem that is Bayham Old Abbey, or put it on your 2023 places to go list. Located on the Kent / Sussex border in the valley of the River Teise (whose source starts at Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells), the ruins are open daily 10am to 5pm.
The early 12th century Premonstratensian abbey was built over 800 years ago on land gifted by Robert de Thurnham (a medieval knight) when two earlier monastic communities merged. The Bayham monks or ‘White Canons’ as they were known for their white religious habits (tunics) were part of the Catholic Premonstratensian order founded by St Norbert of Xanten in 1121.
The monks lived a relatively isolated and austere life at the abbey for circa 300 years building, preaching, teaching, and doing charitable work within the local community. In 1525 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (Henry VIII’s right-hand man) dissolved 20 small monasteries including Bayham to fund educational establishments which incited violence amongst the local villagers. On the June 4th 1525 fearing for their livelihoods, source of local work and trade ‘over a hundred men with painted faces and visures’, armed with longbows, crossbows, swords, and clubs, assembled at the abbey in an effort to reinstate the evicted monks with short lived success.
Between 1536 and 1541 Henry VIII disbanded monasteries (along with priories, convents, and friaries) in England, Wales, and Ireland, seizing their income and assets. Bayham Abbey was left to crumble whilst the estate was leased to royal favourites until Queen Elizabeth I sold it outright in circa 1580. Eventually the estate and ruins were sold to the lawyer Sir John Pratt in 1714. Pratt and his successors retained the ruins as a fashionable landscape feature for 250 years until in 1961 the abbey was put into state guardianship. In 1984 the abbey was put into the care of English Heritage.
Today, Bayham Old Abbey is one the best surviving examples of a Premonstratensian abbey in England. Built from golden local sandstone the ruins include the 13th to 15th-century church, the chapter house, remnants of the long, narrow nave and the enormous windows in the south wall. At the east end a large lone 200 year old beech tree has grown up around the High Altar, shortlisted by the Woodland Trust in 2020 for the ‘UK Tree of the Year’.
On the edge of the site, away from the main ruins, sits the Kent border gate house ruin (the Sussex gate house did not survive) with a perfectly positioned bench to take in the views. A little dirt path to the side leads down the bank to the old bridge which is on private land so you cannot walk over it, but it is a perfect photo opportunity.
The abbey is located off Furnace Lane at Little Bayham just outside Lamberhurst (postcode TN3 8LP). It is free to enter the ruins but £2 to park (for non-members) which you can pay by mobile, or at the quaint charity book shop at the house if your mobile signal is weak. There are no café or other facilities but it is a perfect picnic spot. For more information visit the English Heritage website.
