Historic Description of Halesowen Abbey

Halesowen Abbey

In 1215 King John granted by charter to Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, the manor and advowson of Hales, for the foundation of a religious house; it took the form of a Premonstratensian Abbey, dedicated to the Virgin. Its endowments were increased in later times, and at the Suppression it was valued at £280 a year. The ruins are occupied by a farm. They were planned and studied by Mr Brakspear in 1906 (Archaeological Journal, Ixiii). They are of the thirteenth century.

The church about 190 feet long, had a broad vaulted nave of seven bays, aisled, transepts with two chapels in each, the inner ones prolonged eastwards. The choir, of four bays, projected two bays east of these chapels. The barn, which occupies the north side of the cloister garth, has for its north wall the wall of the south nave aisle, with the two doors into the cloister. At the east end is the west wall of the south transept, of considerable height, with two lancet windows. Part of the south wall of this transept also remains, with the door into the sacristy, and, above, that of the night stairs to the dorter. Bits of the southern transept chapel, and of the north wall of the choir, also remain.

Of the cloister buildings there are these relics – EAST: Remains of the sacristy and foundations of the chapter house (east wall gone), and sub-vault of the dorter. WEST: Some few feet of a wall at the north-west corner. SOUTH: A large piece of the south wall of the frater and its undercroft. The latter was lighted by lancets (four remain, and the doorway); the frater itself, by lancets in pairs. Built into the wall are a coffin lid sculptured with a crucifix, Mary and John, and a kneeling ecclesiastic, and another small slab, perhaps covering a heart-burial, of a cross-legged knight in mail.

Westward is a piece of a detached building of undetermined use, and about 60 yards eastward of the frater is a well-preserved shell of a thirteenth-century building, once called the infirmary, but probably the Abbot’s lodging. The windows are mostly pairs of lancets of the thirteenth century, but some are sixteenth-century insertions. The ancient timber roof remains, but the original floors and partitions are gone.

The pictured tiles with which some of these buildings were paved are the real distinction of Halesowen. They closely resemble those which have been found in large numbers at Chertsey, where they were made. On the Chertsey tiles are subjects from romances of chivalry – Tristram and Iseult, etc. – and some of the Halesowen tiles seem to be from the same moulds. One set of four is datable to about 1298, the inscription showing that they were made for an Abbot Nicholas of that time. We have seen that there are at Great Malvern many decorative and heraldic tiles, both for wall and floor, and fine heraldic tiles also at Cleeve and Neath. At none of these are any to be found pictured with figures, and especially scenes from stories; perhaps the nearest parallels are in the chapter house at Westminster.

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